* t IrM'r 



lEE CLIOSOFHIC SOCIETY 



PRINCETON UNlVERSrf 



^HARD WILIJA 



'iii:i:i 



ii 






m 



liiii: 






111 ;i!''iii"- 



i'll) 



i'iiifi 



W 

m 

III 



!!lll'' 



ll;ll' 

:ilill.il: 



i 



I i 






! '! 



nil 



llil'!, 




Gtpigtel^' 



1 " -Cf^y^ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 



A STUDY OF ITS HISTORY IN COMMEMORATION 
OF ITS SESQUICENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 



BY 

CHARLES RICHARD WILLIAMS 



PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS 

PRINCETON 

1916 






Copyright 1916, by 
Princeton University Press 

Published, November, 1916 




DEC -4i9l6 



©C1.A445927 




TO 

ALL THAT RECALL WITH PLEASURE THE 
JOY OF OLD HALL NIGHTS AND THAT 



FOREWORD 

The committee constituted, early in the year 1915, 
by the Cliosophic Society to prepare for the proper 
celebration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary 
of the founding of the Society, decided that the princi- 
pal feature of the commemoration should be the publica- 
tion of a history of the Society. A special committee 
on history was named of which Professor V. L. Collins 
was made chairman. It is the unwritten law of America 
in regard to committees that the chairman shall do all 
the work. But Professor Collins, aided and abetted 
by other members of the committee, laid the burden 
upon me, the least and last of the committee. Always 
loyal to Clio, I could not on the instant think of a 
good reason for refusing; and so — with much reluc- 
tance — I undertook the task. What I have written, 
however, has had the careful scrutiny and the revising 
pen of Professor Collins. For all errors of omission or 
commission, therefore, let those who may read hold him 
equally responsible. 

It is my hope that the sons of Clio may find some- 
what to interest them in the record of the Society here 
presented ; that it may deepen their devotion and inten- 
sify their loyalty to the muse they claim as patron. 
Charles Richard Williams 
Princeton, April, 1916 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Foreword v 

I The Founding and the Founders 1 

II Development and Discipline 20 

III The Homes of Clio 54 

IV Relations and Rivalries 84 

V Public Competitions and Honors 117 

VI Insignia, Initiation, and Secrecy 145 

VII Interests and Incidents 166 

VIII The Sons of Clio 187 

Afterword 211 



CHAPTER I 

The Founding and the Founders 

The Cliosophic Society came into being June 8, 
1770 — that is to say, under this name. It was a re- 
suscitation or rehabilitation of the Well-Meaning So- 
ciety which was founded not later than 1765. For 
certain it is that in that year there existed in the 
College two literary societies, one known as the Plain- 
Speaking, and the other as the Well-Meaning Society. 
Doubtless other literary societies had been formed and 
lived for short periods before these two were consti- 
tuted ; but these were of more permanent character, had 
a better organization, adopted insignia, and gave their 
graduates diplomas. Possibly they were in existence 
before 1765, for some of the men that have always been 
accounted the founders of our Society graduated be- 
fore that year. But these men were at Princeton in 
1765, pursuing professional studies, and it is not at all 
extraordinary that, desiring practice in speaking and 
debate, they should have cooperated with undergradu- 
ates in creating the Society ; with their larger experience 
and maturity, indeed, they may naturally have been 
the leaders of the enterprise. It is a significant fact that 

1 



g THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

no member of the class of 1764 is recorded as belong- 
ing to the Society. That is hard to account for if the 
Society was then in existence ; much harder to explain, 
indeed, than participation in the formation of the So- 
ciety in 1765 of five graduates. 

It is no wonder that in that year the young men of 
Princeton desired to meet for discussion. It was a time 
of general ferment. As Dr. Howard Duffield, in his 
oration at the laying of the corner-stone of the present 
Hall, June 20, 1890, said: "Seventeen hundred and 
sixty-five ushered in the days that tried men's souls. 
Then did arrogant power with insolent tone proclaim 
the Stamp Act. Then was Boston Harbor 'black with 
unexpected tea.' Then did America arise to 'resist her 
wrongs and lay hold upon her destiny.' Then did 
Princeton students refuse to wear the fabrics of foreign 
looms, and the 'blazers' of 1765 were homespun. Then 
did Princeton's commencement stage ring with periods 
most eloquent concerning the right of independence, the 
love of country, and the worth of liberty; sentiments 
that were soon to be proclaimed by the bell-tongue of the 
old Philadelphia State House until both shores of the 
Atlantic echoed with its peal." 

For reasons no longer clear the two societies soon fell 
into disrepute with the Faculty. Probably their in- 
tense rivalry, resulting in so-called "paper wars," in 
which anonymous attacks by members of one Society on 



FOUNDING AND FOUNDERS S 

men of the other, of a more or less scurrilous nature, 
found currency, had led to excesses of conduct or con- 
flict that were deemed detrimental to the best interests 
of the College. Whatever the reasons were, the Faculty 
in 1768 or 1769, soon after the accession to the Presi- 
dency of that great Scotch philosopher and ardent 
American patriot, John Witherspoon, suppressed both 
societies. 

In 1841 a committee, appointed by the Hall to in- 
quire into the Society's early history, made a report 
which contained the following statement from the Rev- 
erend Nathan Perkins, of the class of 1770: "When 
I first became a member of the College of New Jersey 
(fall of 1766) there were two literary institutions con- 
nected with it, called the Well-Meaning and the Plain- 
Dealing Societies. The object of the Well-Meaning 
was to collect the first young men in point of character 
and scholarship as its members. But the object of the 
Plain-Dealing was to outnumber the Well-Meaning. In 
the year 1768 or 1769 dissensions arose between the 
members of the two societies, and the tide of unpleasant 
feeling arose to such a height that the Faculty of the 
College judged it expedient to abolish both. They 
were accordingly abolished in 1769. There was no 
literary institution connected with the College for some 
months." 

Whether the societies or any proportion of their 



4 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

members continued to hold surreptitious or informal 
meetings, as some faint tradition suggests, can not 
now be determined; though no one acquainted with stu- 
dent characteristics would be surprised if they did. In 
any event, the need for student societies for debate and 
extra-curriculum literary effort was not extinguished. 
It was a period of intense political agitation and discus- 
sion of fundamental principles of government; thought 
was ripening for the fast approaching revolt of the col- 
onies. The young colonials felt that they must have 
place and opportunity for free interchange of opinion — 
a forum for controversy and mutual criticism. So, in 
the early summer of 1769, former members of the Plain- 
Dealing Society, most conspicuous of whom were James 
Madison, Hugh Henry Brackenridge, and Philip Fre- 
neau, all of the class of 1771, and William Bradford, 
of the class of 1772, got together and formed a new 
society, taking for motto Literae, Amicitia, MoreSy and 
named it the American Whig Society, reflecting by their 
name their sympathy with and interest in the liberal 
and progressive element of British politics. Our sister 
society, as the successor of the Plain-Dealing Society, 
would be justified in claiming the date of the founding of 
the latter as the date of its beginning, but it has been 
content to adhere to the date of its reconstitution and 
renaming, June 24, 1769, as its natal day. 

It was the following year, 1770, that the remnant of 



FOUNDING AND FOUNDERS 5 

the Well-Meaning Society came together again and as- 
sumed the name of the Cliosophic Society. For fifty 
years the Society continued to reckon 1770 as its date of 
origin, though it had always regarded the founders of 
the Well-Meaning Society as its own progenitors, and 
had accepted all its members as entitled to its fellowship. 
In view of this inconsistency, and in the interest of his- 
torical accuracy, it was decided, on the basis of informa- 
tion contained in letters received from several of the 
oldest members of the Society then living, — ^letters, 
unfortunately, that were neither preserved nor recorded 
in the minutes, — that the proper date of the beginning 
of the Society was not the year when it was reestab- 
lished and took its new name, but the year when it was 
believed to have been formed as the Well-Meaning So- 
ciety. That year was determined at the time, on evi- 
dence no longer extant, when some of the earliest 
members of the Society were still living, to have been 
1765. The decisive action in officially declaring the 
earlier date was taken April 5, 1820, when it was re- 
solved "that the seal of the Society be changed from 
what it now is (1770) to the year 1765." But if a 
record in the manuscript annals of the Society, carefully 
compiled by David R. Love, of the class of 1858, is 
correctly assigned to the year 1816 (and internal evi- 
dence indicates that it is), this action was only in con- 
firmation of the practical recognition and adoption of 



6 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

the earlier date some years before. That record gives an 
exact description of the gold watch-key to be presented 
by the Society to such of its members as graduated from 
College with high honors. On the key was to be in- 
scribed: "Founded in 1765." 

Professor Henry Clay Cameron in his "History of 
Whig Hall" advances considerations of some though not 
convincing weight in favor of an earlier date for the 
formation of the two parent societies. But the question 
is not of serious import. It is certain in any event that 
our Society, in its first form and with its first name, 
existed in 1765. No positive proof can be discovered 
that it existed before that year. We are thus entirely 
justified in adhering to that date. 

The men who had most to do in forming and giving 
character to the Well-Meaning Society, and so to the 
Cliosophic Society, were William Paterson, Oliver Ells- 
worth, Luther Martin, Tapping Reeve, and Robert 
Ogden. That these men were men of unusual force and 
ability their subsequent careers abundantly prove. Pro- 
fessor George Musgrave Giger, in his centennial "His- 
tory of the Cliosophic Society," devotes many pages to 
sketches of their lives. It is suflScient for our purpose 
to give a very brief resume of the salient facts in their 
careers. Of the men just named, those who accom- 
plished most in the service of humanity, who attained 
greatest distinction, were the three first. 



FOUNDING AND FOUNDERS 7 

William Paterson graduated in 1763, but for some 
years after that time he continued to live at Princeton, 
studying law with Richard Stockton, or not far away, 
and to keep up his relations with student life, taking an 
interested part in the development and activities of our 
Society. Letters of his written during this period show 
that he was already well read in literature, that he pos- 
sessed a lively fancy and wielded a graceful pen, and 
give evidence that he had many friends to whom he was 
devoted. He had no premonition that a great public 
career was awaiting him. In February 1769, writing to 
his dearest friend, John Macpherson (destined to fall at 
Quebec in December, 1775), he said: "To live at ease 
and pass through life without much noise and bustle is 
all for which I care or wish. One of the principal things 
I regard is to be situated well with regard to friends." 
But this dream of ease soon faded away in the stirring 
times that were fast coming on. 

During the stormy years of the Revolutionary period 
he was constantly in public life. He was a member and 
one of the secretaries of the Provincial Congress in 
1775-76 which drafted the first constitution of the State 
of New Jersey; and treasurer at the same time of the 
Province. On the adoption of the state constitution 
he was made Attorney-General of the State and served 
until the declaration of peace in 1783, when he removed 
from Somerville to New Brunswick and resumed the 



8 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

private practice of the law. In the Convention at Phila- 
delphia in 1787 which formed the Constitution of the 
United States, Patersoii was one of the delegates from 
New Jersey. Three of his fellow delegates were also 
members of the Cliosophic Society, Oliver EUsworth, 
Luther Martin, and Jonathan Dayton. Paterson was 
a protagonist for the interests of the small States, and 
it was he that presented to the Convention the famous 
New Jersey plan. While this failed of adoption, it pre- 
pared the way that led to the finally accepted compro- 
mise which gave the States equality of representation in 
the Senate. Professor Max Farrand (Clio, '92) in his 
able book, "The Framing of the Constitution," while 
erroneously stating that Mr. Paterson had been a mem- 
ber of the Continental Congress and a signer of the 
Declaration of Independence, shows with great clearness 
the influential part that Paterson played in the delibera- 
tions of the Convention. He says : "Short of stature, 
unassuming in appearance and manner, Paterson was 
all the more astonishing in debate, where he revealed 
wide knowledge and great ability." 

On the formation of the Union, Mr. Paterson was 
chosen one of the first two Senators of the State ; but he 
soon retired from the Senate on being elected Governor 
of the State. It was while he was Governor that the 
new settlement, which is now the prosperous city of 
Patei'son, was named in his honor. Before his second 



FOUNDING AND FOUNDERS 



9 



term as Governor expired, Washington, March 4, 1793, 
appointed him to the bench of the Supreme Court of the 
United States which he continued to adorn until his 
death in 1806. Many notable decisions came from his 
pen. And, apart from his judicial duties, Paterson 
was busy with many other concerns of public interest, 
the most important of which was the digest and revision 
of the legal code of New Jersey, a task undertaken at 
the request of the Legislature. Washington at one 
time wished him to become Attorney-General; at an- 
other, to succeed Jefferson as Secretary of State, but he 
preferred to remain on the bench. From 1787 to 1802 
Paterson was a trustee of the College. On more than 
one occasion in these years he presided at the annual 
meeting of the Hall in commencement week. 

In all capacities he was a far-sighted, clear-headed, 
vigorous-minded, and efficient personality ; a wise states- 
man, an upright judge, a scholar, a Christian gentle- 
man, a big man, who left a lasting impress on his time 
and country. We do well to give him special honor as 
chief among the founders of our Society. 

Even more distinguished than the career of Paterson 
was that of Oliver Ellsworth, of Connecticut, who grad- 
uated in 1766. He quickly gained prominence at the 
bar in his native State, was a delegate to the General 
Assembly of the State which met soon after the battle 
of Lexington, and was throughout the Revolutionary 



10 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

War a member of the Continental Congress. He was 
one of the delegates from Connecticut in the Constitu- 
tional Convention and a sturdy advocate of the federal 
idea as embodied in the New Jersey plan, which Pater- 
son presented, and in behalf of the equality of the States 
in the Senate. In the Convention he was characterized 
by a Southern delegate as "a gentleman of a clear, 
deep, and copious understanding; eloquent and con- 
nected in public debate and always attentive to his 
public duty. He is very happy in reply, and choice in 
selecting such parts of his adversary's arguments as 
he finds makes the strongest impressions, in order to 
take off the force of them so as to admit the power of 
his own." Very great and desirable qualities, if you 
stop to consider, in any orator, who wishes to accom- 
plish results. Ellsworth urged the acceptance of the 
Constitution by Connecticut in a notable speech in the 
Hartford Convention of 1788. He was one of the first 
Senators from his State and became, in the words of 
John Adams, "the firmest pillar of Washington's whole 
administration in the Senate." 

In 1796 Washington appointed Ellsworth Chief Jus- 
tice of the Supreme Court. He held this post until 1799 
when he was appointed by John Adams one of the 
special envoys to France for the negotiation of a treaty 
in settlement of the controversies between the two coun- 
tries. On the satisfactory conclusion of this under- 



FOUNDING AND FOUNDERS 11 

taking, he returned in 1801 to this country, intending 
to retire altogether from public service, to which he had 
devoted more than twenty-five years of his life. But 
despite his impaired health, he accepted the following 
year election to the Governor's Council and served in 
that until his death in November 1807. 

Ellsworth was one of the forceful and efficient actors 
in the formative stage of the Republic. As Daniel 
Webster said of him once in the Senate, on quoting from 
his famous speech in the Hartford Convention, he was 
"a gentleman who has left behind him on the records of 
the government of his country proofs of the clearest 
intelligence, and of the utmost purity and integrity of 
character." 

Last of the distinguished trio was Luther Martin, a 
classmate of Ellsworth. He himself, in his old age, 
gave the greatest credit for the formation of the So- 
ciety to Paterson and Ellsworth. This he did in a 
letter to the clerk of the Society regretting his inability 
to act as President of the annual meeting. The letter 
is preserved in the minutes for August 2, 1815. It is so 
interesting, not only for the information it conveys, but 
also for its old-time flavor of courtesy and dignity, that 
it is here given in full : 

Baltimore, 31 July, 1815. 
Mr. George W. Toland, 

Sir : — I have this moment received your favour of the 
twenty-eighth instant informing me of the undeserved 



12 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

honour conferred on me by the Cliosophic Society in 
selecting me President of that highly respectable body 
for their next annual meeting, and soliciting my attend- 
ance at that time. 

No person could be more sensible of so flattering a 
distinction, and I receive it with the sincerest pleasure 
as a proof of your respect and approbation; but a 
consciousness of my deficiency for, as well as the impos- 
sibility of my attendance upon, the duties of that station 
to which I have been so unmeritedly selected, compels 
me, tho' with real regret, to decline the honour conferred 
upon me, of which I take the earliest opportunity to 
notify you, that you may not be delayed from making 
a more suitable choice. I had the felicity, for so I 
considered it, of being an early member of that [So- 
ciety] ; but to my distinguished friends, who are no 
more, the late Honourable Oliver Ellsworth and William 
Paterson, it was, I believe, indebted for its institution 
more, perhaps, than to any other persons. 

Receive, sir, for yourself and the other members of 
your respectable body, and be pleased to communicate to 
them my unfeigned and ardent wishes for the happiness 
of each of them individually, as well as for the useful- 
ness and prosperity of their society in its collective 
capacity. 

I have the honour to be very respectfully 
Your obd't Serv't 

Luther Martin. 

Martin was a native of Metuchen, New Jersey, but 
immediately after his graduation he migrated to Mary- 
land where he spent the greatest part of his life. He 
rose to eminence at the bar, was Attorney-General of the 
State and a judge at Baltimore. He, too, was a member 



FOUNDING AND FOUNDERS 13 

of the Constitutional Convention and with Paterson 
and Ellsworth was a defender of the interests of the 
small States. But, unlike these two friends and fel- 
low Clios of his, he was not reconciled to the final com- 
promises of the Constitution and vainly sought to 
influence the people of Maryland against its adoption. 
He was an ardent friend of Aaron Burr and one of the 
lawyers that successfully defended him when he was 
tried for treason. He was accounted one of the ablest 
lawyers of his day ; but he was constitutionally a spend- 
thrift and he died in New York in extreme old age and 
poverty, a pensioner on the bounty of Aaron Burr. 

Dr. E. M. Hunt ('49), of Metuchen, read at the 
annual meeting of 1875 a sketch of Martin's life, in 
which he recalled that Martin graduated with first 
honors, and said in closing: "He was as profound and 
learned as any constitutional lawyer of his day, but as 
he says himself was 'prodigal of everything but time.' 
He added laborious investigation to native genius and 
had many qualities worthy of memorial by those who 
within these walls today reap the benefit of his organ- 
izing mind and his indefatigable zeal." 

Tapping Reeve, of Long Island, graduated in 1763 
and was later a tutor in the College. He married a 
daughter of President Burr. He became a leading 
lawyer and jurist in Connecticut, being for some time 
Chief Justice, and for many years conducted a law school 



14 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

which attracted many students at Litchfield. This he 
started in 1792. It was the first law school founded in 
this country. 

Robert Ogden, a native of New Jersey, graduated 
in 1765, but remained in Princeton for some time after 
graduation, studying law under Richard Stockton along 
with William Paterson. He practiced his profession at 
Elizabethtown, rapidly rising to distinction. He was 
an ardent patriot during the Revolution, but, while two 
of his brothers were officers in active service, physical 
disability prevented him from engaging therein. As 
quartermaster and commissary of stores, however, he 
rendered important if inconspicuous service to the pa- 
triot cause, displaying a zeal and resourcefulness, even 
at his own expense, in the performance of his duties 
which won him great praise. Impairment of health 
forced him into retirement when about forty years old. 
Thenceforward he lived on a farm in Sussex County, 
cultivating and improving his land, active in the church, 
and keeping up his reading of the Greek, Latin, and 
English classics. He was wise in counsel, a good friend 
and neighbor — altogether a gentle, kindly, wholesome 
man. 

A few words may well be added about some of the 
other earliest members. These included Jonathan 
Dickinson Sergeant (1762), a grandson of President 
Dickinson, who was a Delegate to the Continental Con- 



FOUNDING AND FOUNDERS 15 

gress from New Jersey and, after removal to Philadel- 
phia, the first Attorney-General of the State of 
Pennsylvania; Joel Benedict ('65), divine, jurist, Presi- 
dent of the Massachusetts Senate, and Member of Con- 
gress; Jonathan Edwards C^^)^ ^^^ ^^ President 
Edwards, tutor in the college, long an able and eloquent 
preacher, and for the last two years of his life (1799- 
1801) President of Union College; Ebenezer Pemberton 
('65), tutor in the College and all his long life devoted 
to teaching and scholarship, being for many years at 
Phillips Academy, Andover, of which he was principal 
for seven years, and receiving honorary degrees from 
many colleges; Theodore Dirck Romeyn C65), a most 
influential preacher and theologian of the Dutch Re- 
formed Church, and a principal force in the founding 
of Union College at Schenectady, where he was long 
pastor; Simeon Williams ('65), pastor at Weymouth, 
Massachusetts, for more than fifty years; Waightstill 
Avery (^66), prominent lawyer and politician in North 
Carolina, one of the signers of the Mecklenburg Resolu- 
tions; Hezekiah James Balch (^66), likewise a signer of 
the Mecklenburg Resolutions, but who died in 1776 in 
the early years of his ministry; Nathaniel Niles ^66), 
legislator and judge of the Supreme Court of Vermont, 
Member of Congress, six times a presidential elector, 
and for many years a trustee of Dartmouth College; 
John WoodhuU C66), eminent divine and teacher of 



16 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

theology at Freehold for forty-five years, and nearly 
as long a trustee of the College. 

Thus, of the twenty-two young men who in 1765 
created the Well-Meaning Society, who gave it its origi- 
nal impulse and direction, — which were carried over 
into the Cliosophic Society, — fifteen in their later 
careers became leaders in the civic, political, educa- 
tional, and religious life of their time ; several of them 
attaining large influence and leaving lasting impres- 
sions behind. It is perhaps worthy of note that all of 
these first members, of whom we have record, with the 
single exception of Balch, who came from Maryland, 
were from the northern Provinces. It is true, to be 
sure, that in our Hall catalogue Avery and Balch are 
set down as from North Carolina, and Martin from 
Maryland. But Avery was from Connecticut and Balch 
from Maryland and they did not go to North Carolina 
until some years after graduation. Martin was from 
New Jersey and went to Maryland after graduation. Of 
the number, eleven were natives of New Jersey, three of 
Connecticut, and one each of New York, Massachusetts, 
Rhode Island, and Maryland. Of the remaining four 
we have no record. 

Altogether we have the names of forty-five or forty- 
six men who were members of the Well-Meaning Society 
before its suppression. Of those who joined after 
1765, the men that became most famous were Pierpont 



FOUNDING AND FOUNDERS 17 

Edwards ('68), Delegate to the Continental Congress 
and judge of the United States District Court of Con- 
necticut; William Channing ('69), Attorney-General 
of Rhode Island; James Linn ('69), Delegate to the 
Continental Congress, Secretary of State of New Jer- 
sey; Thomas Melville ('69), a member of the Boston 
tea party, major in the Continental army, and Naval 
Officer of the port of Boston for forty years, having 
first been appointed by Washington in 1789; John Tay- 
lor ('70), professor of mathematics and natural phi- 
losophy in Queen's College (Rutgers) and later in 
Union College. 

It was June 8, 1770, as already noted, when the So- 
ciety was revived or reformed, and when, by assuming 
its present name, it avowed its devotion to the muse of 
history. This date for nearly one hundred years was 
celebrated annually by the Hall with special memorial 
exercises. The men credited with being most active 
in the rehabilitation of the Society were Nathan Per- 
kins, of Connecticut, Isaac Smith, of New Hampshire, 
John Smith, of Massachusetts, and Robert Stewart, of 
New York, — all of the class of 1770. All these men 
became clergymen, the best known being Mr. Perkins, 
who was pastor at West Hartford, Connecticut, for 
sixty-six years, and who prepared a large number of 
young men for college and for the ministry. 

The men of the first years of the reconstituted Society 



18 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

that in after life rose to greatest prominence and useful- 
ness were Frederick Frelinghuy sen ('70), Delegate to the 
Continental Congress, United States Senator, and trus- 
tee of the College; Aaron Burr ('72), lieutenant-colonel 
in the Revolution, Attorney-General of New York, 
United States Senator, and Vice-President of the United 
States; Henry Lee ('73), colonel in the Revolutionary 
army ("Light Horse Harry"), Delegate to the Conti- 
nental Congress, Governor of Virginia, and Member of 
Congress in 1799, when he was selected to pronounce in 
Congress the eulogy on Washington, in which he coined 
the immortal characterization, "first in war, first in 
peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen"; Morgan 
Lewis ('73), Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and 
Attorney-General of New York, United States Senator 
and Governor of New York; Aaron Ogden ('73), Chan- 
cellor and Governor of New Jersey, United States Sena- 
tor, trustee of the College; John Ewing Calhoun ('74), 
United States Senator from South Carolina; Henry 
Brockholst Livingston ('74), Chief Justice of the Su- 
preme Court of New York, Associate Justice of the 
Supreme Court of the United States, succeeding Wil- 
liam Paterson; Jonathan Mason ('74), Member of 
Congress and Senator from Massachusetts ; Andrew 
Kirkpatrick ('75), Chief Justice of the Supreme Court 
of New Jersey, and a trustee of the College; Isaac 
Tichenor ('75), United States Senator, Chief Justice 



FOUNDING AND FOUNDERS 19 

of the Supreme Court, and Governor of Vermont ; Jona- 
than Dayton ('76), Delegate to the American Congress, 
member of the Constitutional Convention, Speaker of the 
United States House of Representatives, and United 
States Senator from New Jersey. 

Several other men of this period did conspicuous serv- 
ice in the army, in the church, at the bar, or in educa- 
tional work. Indeed, it is not too much to say that a 
larger proportion of the young men who were members 
of the Society in those first formative years of its 
existence became in after life distinguished and influ- 
ential citizens than in any similar period of the Society's 
history. 



CHAPTER II 

Development and Discipline 

The Revolutionary War brought dark and distressful 
days for Nassau Hall. It was occupied at one time and 
another by the soldiers of both armies, who committed 
many depredations. The College was sadly disorgan- 
ized for a time and students were few. The result was 
that for three or four years our Society was in a state 
of suspended animation. In the four classes 1777 to 
1780 our records show only six members ; one each in 
the classes of '77 and '79, two each in the classes of '78 
and '80. But when the clouds lifted the Society was 
promptly revived. The date marking this renewal of 
activity was July 4, 1781 ; and for many decades this 
day was specially celebrated by the Hall, not only as 
a national holiday but as its own second birthday. Since 
then there has been no interruption in the Society's 
continuous and beneficent activity. 

Unfortunately, the earliest records of the Hall are 
no longer in existence. Those of the first few years were 
lost in the confusion of the time when Nassau Hall was 
occupied by the British soldiers. It is probable that 
the records of the first eleven years after the revival of 

20 



DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE 21 

the Society in 1781 perished in the flames which com- 
pletely destroyed the interior of Nassau Hall in March, 
1802; though we have no definite information on this 
score. In any event the earliest minutes we have are 
those of the summer of 1792. Since that time, with few 
brief hall generation failing to appreciate their impor- 
so carefully as they should have been; but still as well, 
perhaps, as could be expected in a body whose member- 
ship changes so rapidly. 

It is a source of lasting regret, however, that other 
records, — letters, reports, catalogues, books, insignia, 
etc. — which now would be of extreme interest in tracing 
the development and changes in the Society, have for the 
most part entirely disappeared, the students of each 
brief hall generation failing to appreciate their impor- 
tance; and oftentimes, especially when the Hall was 
passing through periods of crisis or great excitement, 
the minutes are tantalizingly meagre. The briefest 
allusion to what every one at the time knows and fully 
understands is naturally all that the clerk for the time 
being thinks necessary. He records the mere facts of 
to-night's meeting with almost sole reference to report- 
ing them at the next meeting, and with no thought of 
how unsatisfactory his report may be to some later 
generation, when the vexing problems of his day have 
ceased to be problems at all, and the conditions of stu- 
dent and hall life have radically changed. 



%% THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

The earliest resume of hall life and conditions found 
in our records is given in the minutes of the annual 
meeting, held September 26, 1792. It is a transcript 
of the "Triennial Circular Letter" to be sent out to the 
graduate members of the Society. It contains so much 
of interest that it is worthy of being given here in full : 

Cliosophic Society, ' 

Princeton, September, 1792. 

Sir : — It is with regret that we observe that the union 
which subsisted between the members of the Cliosophic 
Society has been greatly interrupted by the disturb- 
ances which the war occasioned. Distance of place and 
the want of information concerning the present state of 
the Society have also prevented many of the members 
from renewing their former friendships and intercourse. 
This has been cause of real pain to attending members. 
Prompted, therefore, by our earnest desire to promote a 
union so pleasing and beneficial to us, and requested by 
several non-attending members, we beg leave to acquaint 
you with the present condition of our institution. 

The members of the Society are now numerous 
(amounting to ... [the number was nearly forty] ; 
a list of their names is enclosed), and we are safe in 
asserting that they have obtained by their diligence and 
ability a full share of those honorary distinctions which 
are conferred by the Faculty of the College. The ob- 
jects of the institution are the same that it embraced 
before the Revolution and are pursued on the same plan. 
After an occasional interruption by the war, the So- 
ciety was revived on the 4th of July 1781, and all per- 
sons who had belonged to it were again enrolled as 



DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE 23 

members. The papers, records, and library of the So- 
ciety were lost amidst the general commotion. This 
circumstance has rendered the list of members incom- 
plete, as the names have been supplied from memory 
only. The members of the Well-Meaning Society are 
received as full members on taking the usual oath. 

The meetings of the Society are held on every Wed- 
nesday for the performance of the usual exercises. 
There are also three annual meetings — one on the 8th 
of June for the institution, another on the 4th of July 
for the revival of the Society; the last on the evening 
of the day of the annual Commencement of the College. 
It would be peculiarly grateful to us if, in passing 
through this place, it were convenient for you to attend 
our meetings and by your presence contribute to en- 
courage and direct us in our endeavours to improve in 
literature and science. It is our present wish that the 
intimacy which was formerly maintained may be re- 
vived and continued with all sincerity. And we look with 
affection to you and hope by your exertions to favour 
this desirable end. 

The funds of the Society now consist of monies aris- 
ing from the entrance money and yearly payment of 
each member df the Society; from which — with the lib- 
eral subscriptions among the attending members — and 
from the donations of absent members we have been 
enabled to repair the damages which the Hall sustained 
by the ravages of the war and [to] procure a handsome 
library. We have not completed the number of books 
which it is proposed to render our collection as useful 
as we wish. To accomplish this difficult object, we shall 
with pleasure acknowledge any donations in money or 
books which it may be convenient for you to make to 
the Society. 



m THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

The Society, from ignorance of the place of residence 
of many of the absent members, request your assistance 
in distributing the information of this letter to such of 
the members whose residence may be in your neighbor- 
hood or part of the country. 

With sentiments of affection and friendship. 

This letter suggests many observations. It is evi- 
dent from the first sentence that in the early years of 
the Society graduate members continued to manifest 
particular interest in its activities, and whenever possi- 
ble to participate in its exercises. The number of mem- 
bers was small, and it was natural that the closest sort 
of friendship and intimacy should grow up among 
them, and that their pleas antes t memories of college life 
should cluster about the Hall. We know from other 
sources that this was especially true in the case of Mr. 
Paterson, as long as he lived in and near Princeton. 
Paterson, indeed, frequently took part in the exercises 
of the Society. As late as 1772 he read before the So- 
ciety a poem of some length, entitled "The Belle of 
Princeton," in which he gallantly celebrated the virtues 
and charms of Miss Betsey Stockton, a niece of Richard 
Stockton. What the poem lacked in literary merit it 
made up for in ardor — such, to be sure, that Paterson's 
friends had no doubt that his feelings were deeply en- 
gaged. A few verses will give the quality of this fervid 
outpouring : 



DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE 25 

'Hail, Betsey, hail, thou Virgin bright 
And mild as the chaste orb of night. 
Betsey all hail! Rapt in amaze. 
Thy beauties o'er & o'er I gaze; 
Feast on each Charm, each Charm devour 
Whilst stript of almost ev'ry Pow'r 
Save that of Light, I gaze & gaze 
'Til dazzl'd with all Beauty's Blaze 
I prostrate fall; and where before 
I only gazed at, now adore. 

Her hair, had might in Cupid's eyes. 

He sure would of her Hair make Prize 

To string his Bow, so soft, so fine, 

And of the beautifuUest shine. 

Her eyes, on which I gaze so oft. 

Are blue and languishingly soft, 

Full piercing as the Solar ray 

And mild too as the op'ning Day. 

Her Forehead's polish'd, smooth and eavn. 

Her Eyebrows like the Arch of Heav'n. 

Her cheeks are of the Roses Hue, 

Her Lips sweet as the balmy Dew. 

Her Lips, no mortal can declare 

How round, how soft, how sweet they are; 

Her Lips, where all the graces stray. 

Where all the Loves delight to play. 

Modest & candid, soft and mild, 
Of Temper, gentle as a child. 
Of Pity, full: the Tears still flow 
When e'er she hears a tale of Woe. 

Her temper calm, serene & ev'n 
As vernal Day, or op'ning Heav'n, 
Virtue o'er all her thoughts preside, 
Reason doth all her Passions guide; 
Her Passions like the grateful gale, 
That fans the Lilly of the Vale, 
That fans the op'ning rose of May 
Serves just to keep the soul in Play. 



26 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

Such are her charms: perhaps you'll call 
It Fiction, Fancy, Fancy All; 
Come then th' Original and view. 
You'll own the Copy Just & true." 



It was cause for genuine regret to the Cliosophians 
in 1792 that this pristine closer relationship, or "un- 
ion," of graduate and active members had been inter- 
rupted. Active members at that time, and for many 
succeeding decades, were always spoken of as "attend- 
ing members"; graduate members, sometimes as "non- 
attending," but much more commonly as "absent mem- 
bers." Thus, a Clio student, writing in 1786, speaks 
of seeing "an absent member of ours in the [Prayer] 
Hall" and of going "to the stage house to take leave 
of an absent member of our Society, travelling for his 
health." So, too, in the minutes of July 25, 1792, we 
read of the institution of "a congratulatory address to 
absent Brothers to be delivered at the annual meeting" ; 
the records of annual meetings tell us that such and such 
"absent members" were present ; and the minutes of the 
annual meeting of September 24, 1800, quaintly say: 
"Mr. Mifflin delivered a congratulatory address to the 
non-attending members." 

The meetings of the Society at that time were held 
on Wednesday evening (the Whigs meeting Monday 
evening) as they had been from the beginning. This 
continued to be the day of meeting until January, 1839, 



DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE 27 

several months after the Society had become established 
in its new Hall. The change was made after conference 
with our friends the Whigs. From that time on the 
meetings of both Halls were held, as never before, on 
the same evening, Friday, and it was arranged with 
the Faculty that "no recitation should take place on 
the following morning before breakfast." Besides the 
regular weekly and fixed annual meetings there were 
"occasional" meetings, as special or extra meetings were 
long designated in the minutes ("special" began to ap- 
pear in 1819), at the call of the President for the trans- 
action of special business or to initiate and entertain 
distinguished guests. 

The minute of an "occasional meeting" of January 9, 
1799, can not fail to pique one's curiosity. It reads : 
"The object of the meeting this evening was to propose 
Miss Frances Smith and Miss Margaret Morton as 
members of Society; but, upon objection being offered 
by some of the members, the proposition was with- 
drawn." One can not doubt that a most interesting story 
lies behind this bare recital. We do not know positively 
who either of the young ladies was. The time was dur- 
ing the Presidency of Dr. Samuel Stanhope Smith, son- 
in-law and successor of the great Witherspoon. Dr. 
Smith had a daughter Frances, who was at that time 
in her nineteenth year. So, it seems altogether probable 
that she was the Miss Frances Smith proposed, in spite 



28 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

of the fact that her father was a Whig. It is also prob- 
able that Miss Mortoji was a guest of Miss Smith, from 
New York, and a sister of George Clark Morton (Clio, 
1795). Nor can we imagine what service the young 
ladies may have rendered to the Hall that suggested the 
propriety of their nomination. Mrs. Richurd Stockton 
had been accounted a member of the American Whig 
Society because during the suspension of that Society in 
the Revolution she had preserved the Society's furniture 
and records. So, it may well be inferred that Miss 
Smith and Miss Morton must have served the Cliosophic 
Society in some signal manner that seemed to some of 
the members to justify the unprecedented and unique 
distinction of electing them to membership. Why could 
not the clerk have given details in this instance? But 
objection was offered by some ungallant members, — we 
are glad we do not know their names, — and so Miss 
Frances Smith and Miss Margaret Morton were not 
admitted to our fellowship, and we are left to wonder 
about the entire episode. We only know that these two 
young ladies are the only women that ever were proposed 
for admission to the Hall. 

"The objects of the institution are the same that it 
embraced before the Revolution and are pursued on the 
same plan," reads the letter. These were felt, at the 
time, to be too well known to require specification. Now 
we may remind ourselves of them by quoting a sentence 



DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE 29 

from a letter addressed to the Society in February, 
1799, by the Hon. Jonathan Dayton, of the class of 
1776: "To promote mutual improvement, to inspire a 
virtuous emulation, to cultivate brotherly affection were 
the primary objects of the institution and have been 
uniformly kept in view through the successive changes of 
membership for very many years." Doubtless, there 
has been no time since when a graduate member, think- 
ing of the spirit and influence of the Hall, might not 
have used substantially the same language. It is only 
a paraphrase and amplification of the officially declared 
object of the Society, "the cultivation of friendship 
and the enlargement of the mind." 

A stereotyped formula in reporting the weekly meet- 
ings was : "The exercises were performed as usual" ; but 
sometimes the clerk would add in parenthesis "not so 
well" or "better." These exercises consisted of speeches, 
or "harangues," by the officers, declamations by under- 
classmen and orations by upper-classmen, compositions, 
letter writing, and debates. For a time also there was 
select reading each evening by six members taken in 
regular rotation, and it was ordered "that the pieces 
read should be either from the Spectator, Lounger, or 
Mirror, and that the length of the pieces be not less 
than one, nor more than two pages." There was simi- 
lar regulation as to the length of compositions ("at least 
three hundred words") and other exercises; and on 



30 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

August 3, 1808, it was ordered that "no compositions 
be read before Society excepting those written in Latin 
and English." Can it be that some of our versatile 
members of that day wished to employ Greek or Hebrew 
in their hall essays? And how long is it, one may 
wonder, since any member has oifered a Latin perform- 
ance in Hall? 

All written exercises for the Hall, letters, composi- 
tions, and speeches, had to be submitted, before presen- 
tation in Hall, to official Correctors appointed from 
the upper classes; and we may be sure that tiiey 
received thorough criticism and correction. Composi- 
tions required by the Faculty had also to be submitted 
to Correctors before they were presented to the pro- 
fessor. Doubtless, this system contributed immensely 
to the development in the members of ease and correct- 
ness of composition. 

There is abundant evidence in the annual reports that 
the members appreciated the opportunities for train- 
ing in speaking that the Society aiforded. For example 
the report of 1829, after felicitating the Society on the 
increased interest in oratory that had been shown during 
the year, has this eloquent paragraph: "We cannot 
dismiss this interesting subject without adverting to its 
vast and increasing utility, and pressing upon the minds 
of the rising members of our beloved institution the 
beneficial results that must accrue from a superiority in 



DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE 31 

this department. Our country presents an extensive 
theatre in which the irresistible power of the persuasive 
art must always appear to advantage. Here where 
emphatically the people rule, where reason guides the 
helm, and Liberty and Equality is the watchword, sub- 
lime eloquence will ever exert a powerful influence in her 
[whose?] proceedings. The manly orator breathing the 
noble spirit of patriotism and pleading the best in- 
terests of his country cannot fail to strike a chord that 
will vibrate in unison with the feelings of his audience, 
and will thus enable him by enlisting the feelings of 
the people and giving a tone to public sentiment, to 
command the energies and promote the interests of 
every circle in which he moves." 

The most important feature of the hall exercises, 
from the earliest day, was felt to be the practice of 
extemporaneous debate. This gave opportunity, as 
nothing else could, for learning to think on one's feet 
and to give ready and appropriate expression to one's 
thought. Professor Henry D. Sheldon in his "Student 
Life and Customs" defines the chief function of student 
debating to be "to prepare students for public life" ; and 
he adds : "This aim it accomplishes by giving them 
mechanical dexterity of speech, by deepening their 
interest in social and political problems, and by antici- 
pating the rules and conditions of parliamentary 
bodies." Moreover, it sharpens the wit and cultivates 



32 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

the understanding; as a writer in the London Spectator 
says, it affords "the collision of taste with taste, of 
intellect with intellect, of conscience with conscience, of 
spirit with spirit"; it teaches young men to discrim- 
inate between true and specious arguments ; and it 
helps greatly in preparing them to take part easily 
and confidently in public affairs when they pass out 
into active life. This is especially true of those who 
are looking forward to the law or the church. Many 
a graduate, as letters in our records demonstrate, 
who, in after life, became distinguished as a public 
speaker traced back to his practice in the Hall and the 
criticisms of his fellow members the beginnings of his 
oratorical power. A paragraph in the annual report of 
1850 does not overstate the estimation of the value of 
the hall discipline which was then entertained by the 
members. "We would not undervalue," it says, "the 
courses of instruction in the College, but it can justly be 
said that the success which has followed Clios through 
every department of life is attributable in a great meas- 
ure to the exercises of this Hall. The variety of 
literary performances, the privilege of remark and criti- 
cism, and the observance of judicious laws and regula- 
tions, all tend to develop and inspire with energy those 
faculties which are so necessary to success in any call- 
ing." It is hardly too much to say, however, that 
interest in hall activities has waxed and waned with 



DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE 33 

interest in the hall debates. More than any other 
single feature, it has been the barometer which indicated 
the vitality of the Society's atmosphere. 

From the first the minutes have regularly recorded 
the questions debated and the decisions rendered. A 
whole chapter could be written on these questions and 
decisions, as revealing the intellectual life of the students 
at various periods and reflecting the political, social, 
and religious problems which were uppermost in the 
public mind. A large proportion of the subjects, to be 
sure, has been made up of ancient problems of casuistry, 
of disputed questions of history and literature, of the 
comparative merits of famous warriors, statesmen, or 
authors ; but along with these have always appeared — 
and, with the progress of the years, in increasing num- 
ber — political, social, religious, and economic questions 
of contemporaneous interest and appeal. 

The very earliest subject recorded — and one that was 
often debated — was : "Whether a public or private edu- 
cation be preferable," and we are informed that, "the 
decision of the Society was in favour of those who sup- 
ported that a public education was preferable." One 
cannot help the impression that not infrequently the 
decision reflected not so much the judgment of the So- 
ciety on the relative merits of the debaters as the 
feelings or opinions of the members on the question 
itself. Other early subjects debated were: "Whether 



34 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

would it be more advantageous for a young man upon 
his first entrance into public life to endeavour to pro- 
mote his own interests or that of the public" (March 
27, 1793) ; "Whether is the British government justifi- 
able in joining the league against France" (May 22, 
1793) ; "Whether would be more politic in America 
at present, to encourage extensive navigation or the cul- 
tivation of unimproved land" (May 29, 1793) ; "Which 
method of living, the simple or refined, is more advan- 
tageous to a State, not only with a view to politicks, 
but to the great good, happiness, and prosperity of the 
people?" (June 12, 1793). "The Society determined in 
favour of those who supported the side of refinement." 
June 26, 1793, the question was : "Whether would it be 
proper for the United States to observe the strict neu- 
trality recommended by the President's proclamation 
with respect to the Belligerent powers of Europe." It 
is not difficult to imagine the Society debating precisely 
this last question one hundred and twenty-one years 
later; nor is it unlikely that the decision would have 
been the same — in favor of those who defended the 
President's recommendation. 

A flood of reflections on college life and government 
is suggested by the topic of July 24, 1793 : "Whether 
would the introduction of corporal punishment into 
college be beneficial." We are not surprised that the 
decision was in the negative; but the very fact that 



DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE 35 

such a question could be broached, much less be se- 
riously debated by students, transports us to a period 
of time and thought utterly alien to our comprehension. 
We can only come to some understanding of it by care- 
fully reading the early code of college laws; and by 
recalling the fact that corporal punishment did exist 
for some time at Harvard College. 

December 24, 1807, the Society debated the question : 
"Was the purchase of Louisiana politic ?" and answered 
it in the affirmative. As early as November 27, 1793, 
the subject of slavery began to be debated. On that 
evening the question was phrased : "Would it be politic 
in America to abolish slavery .?" and the decision was no. 
January 14, 1795 the question was : "Would it be of 
advantage or disadvantage to the United States to 
liberate the African slaves?" The decision was that it 
would be disadvantageous. Through the long years 
until the Civil War the question in one form or another 
was frequently debated, and usually the defenders of 
slavery were decided to have had the best of the 
argument. 

Other questions frequently debated were : "Would it 
be politic in the United States of America to encourage 
theatrical amusements?" — "Is it suitable for students to 
frequent the company of ladies ?" — "Is imprisonment for 
debt consistent with justice?" — "Are the minds of men 
more susceptible of improvement than those of wo- 



36 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

men?" — "Should atheism prevent a man's holding any 
office under government?" — "Which has greatest influ- 
ence on the actions of mankind, hope or fear, reward or 
punishment?" — "Was it politic in Elizabeth to behead 
Mary, Queen of Scots?"— "Should the United States 
maintain a standing army?" — "Ought universal suf- 
frage to be allowed?" — "Which conduces most to hap- 
piness, the married or unmarried state?" — "Ought 
women to receive a liberal education?" (The negative 
won, March 5, 1794.) — "Ought females to be al- 
lowed to participate in the privileges of the elec- 
tive franchise?" (This was debated first in June, 
1838, when the negative was decided victorious. The 
question in one form or another has often been de- 
bated since then.) — "If a pumpkin vine spring up in 
one man's patch and run over into another man's patch 
and there produce a pumpkin, to whom does the pump- 
kin belong?" — ^Another whimsical subject, more than 
once debated, was : "Is a pig's tail more for ornament 
or use?" The author has a vivid recollection of its 
discussion one evening when he was a junior in college. 
The mock seriousness with which the young orators — in 
after life to become famous preachers and lawyers — 
attacked the subject, the flights of eloquence in which 
they indulged and the flashes of wit or humor which they 
displayed evoked shrieks of laughter and uproarious 
shouts of applause. 



DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE 37 

Subjects debated in the fifties are noteworthy. They 
afford typical evidence of the interest manifested by 
students in every period of the Society's life in the great 
questions of the day : "Are the interests of females 
advanced by women's rights conventions?" — "Should 
a system of internal improvements be carried out by the 
General Government?" — "Is the exclusion of foreign 
articles to encourage domestic manufacturers conducive 
to the public wealth?" — "Which would be most bene- 
ficial to the country, the election of General Scott or 
the election of General Pierce?" — "Can the exercises 
of the Lynch law be justified under any circumstances?" 
(Decided in favor of the affirmative.) — "Do signs of the 
times indicate the perpetuity of our National institu- 
tions?" (Negative won.) — "Should American citizens 
give Kossuth a public reception on his return to this 
country?" — "Ought Cuba to be annexed to the United 
States?" (Affirmative won.) — "Was the United States 
Government right in banishing the Mormons to Salt 
Lake because their religion allows polygamy?" (Nega- 
tive won.) — "Would it be a politic act for the Pope to 
crown Louis Napoleon?" (Affirmative won.) — "Was 
the Administration of President Polk censurable for 
projecting ^nd carrying on the Mexican War?" (Nega- 
tive won.) — "Has the Government a right to build a 
Pacific railroad?" (Negative won.) — "Is the annexa- 
tion of the Sandwich Islands desirable?" (Affirmative 



38 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

won.) — "Will the passage of the Nebraska bill be detri- 
mental to the country?" (Negative won.) — "Ought the 
Protestant countries of Europe to defend Turkey in 
her struggle against Russia, irrespective of right, for 
the sake of propagating Protestant doctrines in her 
territory?" (Negative won.) — "Has a single State 
the right to secede from the Union?" (Affirmative 
won.) — "Should American sympathies be enlisted on 
the side of the Allies in the present European war?" 
(Negative won.) — "Was Bacon the author of Shakes- 
peare's plays?" (Negative won.) — "That the develop- 
ment theory is worthy of acceptance." (Negative won.) 

It is interesting to note, however, that so far as 
the subjects of debate give indication, the Society was 
hardly conscious of the progress of the War of 1812 
or of the Mexican War, and that it paid small attention 
to the bitter controversies that attended the birth of the 
Republican party and culminated in the Civil War. 
The members were drawn from every part of the coun- 
try and represented every phase of political thought. 
It was probably felt expedient as a general rule to 
avoid subjects that could not fail to rouse partisan 
passions or to provoke sectional recrimination. 

Until 1862 no manual of parliamentary law was 
adopted by the Hall to govern the mode of its pro- 
cedure. Then a thorough revision of the constitution 
was effected, and Matthias's Manual was made authori- 



DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE 39 

tative. Before that time the proceedings had been con- 
ducted, doubtless in harmony with generally accepted 
parliamentary principles, under the sole authority and 
provisions of the Society's own constitution and by-laws. 
There was agitation for some years in favor of adopting 
a recognized code of procedure, but the Society was 
reluctant to give up the old order, especially as the 
graduate members advised against it. Indeed, the grad- 
uate members have always been more conservative, more 
desirous of maintaining the ancient rules and practices, 
than the active members. In many instances changes 
or reforms in hall methods and offices have been made 
by the young men, although the old members in annual 
meeting had expressed their disapproval. 

One cannot read the minutes over a period of years 
without being impressed with the thought that the Hall 
has been a microcosm of American institutional and 
public life. It has had little reverence for the old 
simply because it was old. It has wished every office 
and practice, however long established, to justify itself 
in the conditions of the present, or to give way in favor 
of something that would better meet the existing de- 
mands. So, through all its history, by frequent recast- 
ing of the constitution and the body of the by-laws, and 
by innumerable amendments to both, by abolishing old 
offices and modes of exercise and introducing new, the 
Society has sought, by changing with the changing 



40 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

times, to keep itself alive and young, and to meet the 
instant requirements of the students of each generation. 
Whatever the past utility or glory of an institution may 
have been, it can continue to be useful and to gain new- 
glory only by constantly adapting itself in measures 
and methods to the varying demands and the different 
needs which the new ideas and ideals of each epoch are 
bound to create. The constitution and the purpose of 
the Hall remain essentially the same that they were in 
the beginning, but there have been infinite changes in 
form and method, in exercises and offices, to assure the 
vitality of the constitution and to make the attainment 
of the Hall's purpose easier and more certain. 

For many years the members were required to wear 
their gowns at hall meetings. This requirement was 
abrogated in 1832. As a general rule, the records indi- 
cate, the proceedings of the Society have been conducted 
with proper decorum, and with due respect to the 
constituted authorities. But there have been numberless 
exceptions to the rule. For example, the annual report 
of 1823 is pained to record: "Peace and tranquillity 
have been blasted by the pernicious breath of faction, 
and these walls, sacred to literature and brotherly affec- 
tion, have echoed to the voice of violent contention." 
Ah, very human, very human, the brothers of Clio have 
always been, with all their strivings for "the things that 
are more excellent." 



mm 






TAPnxG i\.EE\'E, Class of 1763 



[From Kilbourn's "Bench and Bar of Litchfield County, Conn."] 



DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE 41 

The Society, indeed, especially in its business meet- 
ings, has shown on occasion all the characteristics of 
other parliamentary bodies. There have been stormy 
sessions, acrimonious debates, defiance of rules and 
officers, secessions from the Hall for grievances, real or 
fancied, and seasons of wild disorder. Some of these 
episodes were tremendously serious at the time, but 
hardly one had any lasting effect. Moreover, there have 
been times when cliques were formed to control the elec- 
tion of officers or the choice of orators, when factions 
were fomented, and society politics ran high. For ex- 
ample, the annual report of 1831 asserts: "Under- 
handed and improper measures were taken in order that 
some most intimate connections might be severed and 
the influence of friend might be wielded against friend. 
The whole was planned and executed with a skill that 
appeared to mark the last desperate struggle of disap- 
pointed ambition. We allude to a system of electioneer- 
ing machinery set in operation about the time of 
balloting for the periodical speakers of the Society. 
The plans laid unhappily succeeded, perhaps from want 
of due watchfulness. Movements were silent and unsus- 
pected and probably would have so continued but for 
some accidental circumstances through which the whole 
transpired." 

Such pernicious activity was particularly common in 
the last few years of the long period during which the 



n THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

Halls had uncontrolled authority in choosing the Junior 
Orators, and these were selected by vote of the Halls. 
Here was opportunity for every sort of personal elec- 
tioneering and factional combination known to American 
practical politics. Great conflicts rose, bitter feuds 
were started, and turbulent scenes were enacted. It is 
no wonder that Faculty and Trustees intervened. In 
the fifties, too, disturbances were caused and difficulties 
created by men that had become members of Greek 
letter fraternities ; and in this same period there was a 
tendency for the members from the South to band to- 
gether in opposition to the members from the North on 
questions of hall policy and in the election of officers. 
All which simply illustrates and enforces the fact that 
young men in their college associations are very much 
the same as older men in active life — a little more in- 
tense, perhaps, a little more insistent on enforcing the 
strict letter of the law, but equally eager to carry their 
point and equally ready for that purpose to form secret 
combinations, to proceed by indirect courses, and to 
employ questionable methods. 

Not infrequently, too, the proceedings were enlivened 
by the presentation of frivolous motions couched in sober 
and dignified phrase and defended or opposed with the 
utmost seriousness of argument and demeanor, such as 
to enhance the amusement of the performance. At 
other times serious proposals received humorous word- 



DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE 43 

ing, as when, on September 14, 1816, the Society ordered 
the purchase of six plated candlesticks "for the Presi- 
dent's desk and its appendages to supply the places of 
the old ones whose age and infirmities call loudly for a 
respite." Doubtless malicious joy permeated the Hall 
on the evening of May 20, 1818, when it adopted this 
resolution: "Resolved that Brother Collins should be 
granted the privilege of speaking before Society every 
Wednesday evening and of repeating the same speech as 
often as convenience would dictate." We are not in- 
formed with what grace Brother Collins received this 
covert rebuke from the evidently long-suifering HaU; 
but we feel morally certain that he failed to avail him- 
self of the privilege so kindly granted him. 

On December 10, 1852, a committee which had been 
appointed to provide better ventilation for the Hall 
reported that it had successfully performed its duty; 
whereupon, in a spirit of generous appreciation, the 
Society voted "that the two dollars yet in the hands of 
the ventilation committee be given to the committee so 
they can obtain stews and porter with it" ; and a moment 
later (on motion of Brother Anderson) "that the com- 
mittee take Anderson with them when they eat the 
stews." But whether Brother Anderson was to be a par- 
taker or merely a witness of the feast of "stews and por- 
ter," the clerk neglects to tell us. Evidently, too, there 
must have been special provocation that induced the Hall 



44 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

on November 4, 1864, to vote, with enthusiastic alacrity, 
"That an old shoe be procured from which a leather 
medal shall be made to be presented to the senior who 
shall get off the poorest joke or tell the poorest story." 
On October 7, 1853, the seniors were excused after six 
p. M. "to attend the exhibition of the planet Jupiter." 
From the beginning of the Society until the revision 
of the constitution in 1862, every man on entering 
Hall was required to assume a fictitious name, by which 
he was known in all society proceedings. Outside the 
Hall, of course, and especially in the hearing of a Whig, 
any use of the fictitious names had to be scrupulously 
avoided. In the earlier days the names most commonly 
adopted were Greek and Latin proper names and the 
names of famous historic characters. In the very first 
minutes of a regular meeting that we have, those for 
July 6, 1792, these names appear : Alcibiades, Themis- 
tocles, Minos, Galileo, Sully, Addison, Octavianus, Cym- 
baline (sic), and Cleomenes. But gradually the range of 
choice was widened and we have such names from fiction 
as Red Rover, Peveril of the Peak, Tittlebat Tittle- 
mouse, Maltravers, Tony Lumpkin, Corporal Trim, 
Natty Bumpo, Roderick Dhu, Sam Slick, Paupukewis, 
and Rip Van Winkle; or such appellations as, Hard 
Times, Log Cabin, Anybody, Never Tire, Dismal Jeems, 
Jolly Potato, Brandy Cocktail, Thumbscrew, Pompey 
Smash, Old Kentuck, Oconochee Wild Cat, Bar Creek 



DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE 45 

Baby Waker, Nubbin Ridge Coon Hunter, Possum up a 
Gum Tree, Stick in the Mud, Polly Put the Kettle on. 
Sic Semper Tyrannis, Animis opibusque semper parati, 
What do you do with your Ears, and Where did Peter 
Piper pick a peck of Pickled Peppers ; or such grotesque 
creations as, Mr. Caesar Augustus Mark Antony 
Swipes, Esq., Noncomatibus in Swampo, John Ollen 
Bohen Graben Steiner Schuben Bicher, Aldeboron- 
defosbiforniosticos, Chrononhotontologos, Mistress 
Chefuscumclickclackmanicum, Triethyladdimethylapro- 
topropylamine, and Muleyabenhassankelikhan. The 
shortest fictitious name was A; the longest, Histiker- 
juncttillanytitlleoussinctigorrymathycally. How the 
clerk must have thought unpleasant words when it was 
necessary to record the performance of a brother that 
bore one of these outlandish pseudonyms ! Sometimes 
strange groupings of names happen to appear in the 
minutes. January 4, 1826, for example, Beelzebub, 
Plato, and Hyder Ali formed a debating team ; and that 
same evening, in another debate, Cincinnatus and Flib- 
berty Gibbet, supporting the affirmative of the tremen- 
dously important question, "Is ambition beneficial to 
society.^" won the decision against all the subtlety and 
craft of Lucifer and Ulysses. "- 

Through many early decades of the Society's life, 
the discipline of the Society was constantly exercised 
over the conduct and activities of the individual mem- 



46 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

bers, not only in the Hall, but in their college life and 
in their relations outside the campus. Testimony to this 
effect is afforded by a letter, printed in Professor Giger's 
History, from an eminent Southern lawyer who became 
a member of the Hall in 1799. The letter says: "At 
this distant day [1858] I sincerely pronounce it to have 
been the best society I have ever had anything to do 
with. It was, as a part of education, worth as much as 
the College itself, not only in a literary point of view, 
but in that of manners and morals. It did much to 
remove boyish habits and make men of us, — and men of 
sound and correct principles for society in after life. 
It was a practical school, unequalled within my knowl- 
edge. . . . Minor faults in the personal conduct of the 
members were inquired into in the most quiet and deli- 
cate way and produced a gentle reprimand. But it was 
a serious matter if anything like dishonor was involved. 
Deliberately and fairly was it investigated, but surely 
and sternly punished." 

Every member was expected to behave himself prop- 
erly in Hall, to attend the meetings regularly, and to 
perform all the required hall duties; and equally he 
was expected to be a conscientious student, to obey the 
college rules, and to conduct himself in all relations as 
a gentleman. Discipline was enforced in serious cases 
by official reproof, by requests for resignation, by sus- 
pension, or by expulsion ; in ordinary cases, by an elabo- 



DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE 47 

rate system of fines. Thus, for example, on March 27, 
1793, a member was called up for bad scholarship and 
was voted to be culpable, but this vote was considered to 
be punishment enough. Two months later, however, 
this man was suspended, during the pleasure of the So- 
ciety, because of his disrespectful conduct when the 
Society voted to suspend another member for bad schol- 
arship unless he showed amendment within two weeks. 
On August 14, 1793, "it appeared to be the general 
sense of the Society that Bro. Alcaeus' scholarship 
and character as a student in GoUege were such as to 
render him unworthy of a seat in this Society. It was 
therefore proposed and agreed to that he should be 
desired to withdraw himself from it." 

On December 3, 1793, two members "were arraigned 
before the Society for playing at cards and keeping 
bad company. They were deemed culpable and sus- 
pended for four weeks." The law of the Society for 
years was: "The attending members are forbidden to 
play at cards or dice or any unlawful game ; and playing 
for anything shall be esteemed gambling." On August 
6, 1805, a member was "arraigned for ungentlemanly 
conduct towards his creditors in town, and especially to 
two or three members of College who had been so kind 
as to lend him money sufficient to extricate himself so far 
as to enable him to leave town. The affair was examined 
with much coolness and moderation, and notwithstand- 



48 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

ing the exertions of his friends, the punishment of sus- 
pension was inflicted." 

Expulsions followed gross breaches of discipline, such 
especially, as persistent evil courses, plagiarism, or 
divulging the secrets or committing acts injurious to the 
interests of the Society. For example, February 27, 
1822, a member was expelled "for wearing an indepen- 
dent badge at Senior speaking." The account of this 
action in the annual report for that year is too charac- 
teristic to omit. "Your committee," it runs, "state with 
pleasure that peace and tranquillity have reigned almost 
universally in this institution. The withering blast of 
Faction has scarcely been inhaled ["inhaling a withering 
blast" is good!] by any individual of Society. But one 
circumstance has occurred to mar our prospects or 
disturb our social felicity. And here it becomes our 
painful duty to mingle the bitter with the sweet; to 
destroy in some measure that pleasure and satisfaction 
which the former part of this report is calculated to 
produce. A circumstance occurred during the past year 
which must be peculiarly painful to every real Clioso- 
phian. Some members of the senior class, irritated with 
some of the internal proceedings of Society, resolved to 
wear independent badges while delivering their public 
speeches, and thereby disclaimed all connection with the 
Society. The nature of this offense in itself, your com- 
mittee presume, is well known to every member of this 



DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE 49 

Society; but this affair was peculiarly aggravated, 
being all earnestly requested by their intimate friends 
to desist from executing their rash designs ; at the same 
time reminded of the unhappy consequences ; but regard- 
less of the admonition of their friends and bidding defi- 
ance at the censure of Society, they persisted in their 
determination, notwithstanding one of them was at the 
time an attending member of Society. The acting 
members considered it a breach of that honor which 
ought to distinguish every real Cliosophian ; an offense 
evidently showing a contempt to the Society whose in- 
terest they are bound most solemnly to promote. The 
attending members (knowing that at a previous annual 
meeting it was resolved that such conduct should utterly 
be discountenanced) after consulting several non-attend- 
ing members and mutually deliberating on the whole 
affair, deeming them culpable in the highest degree, in- 
flicted upon them the punishment of expulsion." 

The derelictions that were punishable by fines, espe- 
cially in the early decades of the Society's existence, it 
would be difficult and tedious fully to set forth. Every 
slightest infraction of rules or breach of gentlemanly 
conduct within the Hall brought its penalty. Until 
1796 the fines were assessed in shillings and pence, no 
fine being less than sixpence. Fines were numerous for 
absence or tardiness or overstaying permission of leave ; 
for failures to perform exercises and other hall duties. 



50 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

or to submit compositions to Correctors, or to have 
speeches perfectly committed to memory; for using im- 
proper language, or making interruptions, or being 
disrespectful; for studying recitations in Hall, or for 
using books from the hall library without having them 
covered; for reading before Hall a composition pre- 
viously read before class; for smoking in the Hall, or 
attending the meeting without gown or in improper 
garb. On June 10, 1795, for example, "Brother Cleo- 
phas was fined 9d for appearing in Hall without stock- 
ings, and Brother Luther 9d for not wearing a cravat." 
Our guess is that it was a sultry night, and that the 
young men did not begrudge the fines for the added 
comfort they had enjoyed in the close and stuffy quar- 
ters that the Society then occupied. 

But members were fined also for all kinds of offenses 
committed outside the Hall. The Cliosophians were 
long required to sit in the west gallery of the church 
and were fined if they appeared in the east gallery 
where the Whigs congregated. This requirement was 
abolished in August, 1797. Men were likewise fined for 
sleeping or reading in church ; for missing recitations or 
chapel; for having college orations imperfectly com- 
mitted to memory; for taking textbooks to class when 
not allowed by the professors. 

In 1799 a special officer for each class, styled "bill- 
keeper," a name used also in the old college laws as 



DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE 51 

synonymous with monitor (the word appears in no dic- 
tionary), was appointed whose duty it was to report 
to the Society the names of those of his class who ab- 
sented themselves from morning prayers (and they 
were very early in those days) oftener than once a 
week, and "to take notice and report to the clerk all 
those who refuse, are stumped, or read off at recitation, 
that they may be fined accordingly." On July 6, 1820, 
it was made his duty "to report as absent from recita- 
tion, church, or prayers every one whom he knows to 
be absent notwithstanding the party's name be an- 
swered to." This thankless office was finally abolished 
after much agitation in December 1838, when fines were 
no longer assessed for breaches of college discipline or 
other misdemeanors committed outside of Hall. On 
more than one occasion the annual report has pride in 
commenting on the high moral tone of the Society's mem- 
bership. Thus in 1830, it can say: "Of the morality 
of the College we can speak well ; but of the morality of 
our Society we can speak in terms of almost unqualified 
approbation. In this too we have the preeminence of 
our rival. In confirmation of this opinion we beg leave 
to introduce one fact. Of the forty-six students who 
belong to a Temperance Society, founded in College dur- 
ing the past year, thirty-six are members of this Hall. 
However some of our friends may differ in their opin- 
ions concerning the propriety of an association of that 



52 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

kind, they must all agree that it is a good test of moral 
character." 

How vigilantly the Society looked after the conduct 
of its members is shown further by action taken Jan- 
uary 19, 1814, when it was, "Resolved that if any 
member of this Society be detected in clapping, hissing, 
or scraping, or in any other manner insulting the Fac- 
ulty or any member or members thereof, he shall be 
fined in a sum not less than two dollars, admonished, 
suspended, or expelled, at the option of the Society." 
Moreover, in the winter of 1817 several members were 
found to have been guilty of participating "in the late 
rebellion" and were suspended. 

This action was in the same spirit as that which had 
been displayed in March 1809, when a committee was 
appointed "to consider and report such further meas- 
ures as they approve in relation to the disturbance that 
has recently taken place in College and to the conduct 
they will pursue hereafter for the purpose of more effec- 
tually promoting order in the institution." At the same 
time the Society appointed a committee to seek a confer- 
ence with the Whigs for the purpose of devising a plan 
for the joint action of the two Halls in using their influ- 
ence and authority in the interest of better order and 
discipline in College. But the Whigs, while acknowl- 
edging "the fallen and deplorable condition of the 
College with regard to order and government," refused 



DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE 53 

to join in the proposed effort, declaring that they were 
"not convinced of the justice or legality of the demand 
made upon them by the Faculty of the College, and that 
they do consider all regulation for the government of the 
institution, contributing to its prosperity and honor, 
of right to be ordained and put into execution solely by 
the power and authority of the directors of the College, 
and not, as is here insinuated, to be the creature of an 
inferior body." 

Verily, it is a long way from that attitude of mind of 
the VS^igs of 1809 to the vigorous and efficient system 
of student government which in recent decades has been 
so successfully developed in the University, the frail and 
unsuspected germ of which we can faintly discern in the 
Clio proposal. 



CHAPTER III 



The Homes of Clio 



The first home of the Society was in Nassau Hall. 
It was on the topmost floor directly over the main en- 
trance, the western of the two small rooms filling the 
front projection of the building. The eastern room 
was the abode of the Whigs. There was a diminutive 
antechamber. The Hall itself was so contracted that 
when the number of members rose to thirty or forty it 
must have been dreadfully crowded; and, with its low 
ceiling, small windows, and closed door, the air must 
have been stifling at almost every season of the year, 
and especially so during the long summer session. No 
wonder that now and then a daring member was willing 
to incur a fine by appearing in Hall in scanty raiment. 
The limited space was encroached upon by the cases to 
hold the growing library and by the necessary desks or 
tables for the officers. The room was heated by a fire- 
place and lighted with candles in sconces and candle- 
sticks. There is no record of the quality and character 
of the furnishing, except that several settees were pur- 
chased in 1800, "in order that the Hall might be capa- 
ble of accommodating a greater number of members." 

54> 



THE HOMES OF CLIO 55 

So we can infer that before that time chairs were used. 
The only ornaments mentioned were "a frontispiece" 
containing the name of the Society and the dates of its 
institution and revival "together with its properties 
and effects," which hung over the fireplace, and por- 
traits of Washington and Adams. These latter were 
in all probability engravings or lithographs, for the 
"several settees" and portraits all together were bought 
for eighty-six dollars. 

But all these treasures together with the library, 
which by that time must have had several hundred vol- 
umes (and would have had more, "but we could not 
procure them either in Philadelphia or New York"), 
were consumed in the fire of March 1802. At least, that 
has been the accepted tradition, and Professor Giger 
so declares without qualification. It is a curious fact 
that the minutes are silent about this calamity. But 
a brief entry of August IT, 1803, makes it seem probable 
that the books, or many of them, were saved. This entry 
notes the appointment of a committee "to cull useless 
books from the library and dispose of them by lottery." 
It does not seem at all likely that in less than eighteen 
months the Society could have accumulated a new li- 
brary of such size and quality as to suggest the need 
of weeding out. However this may be, the fire crippled 
the Society and left it without a meeting place. 

It immediately obtained temporary quarters in a 



56 TPIE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

house which stood at the corner of Nassau Street and 
what is now University Place, on part of the site at 
present occupied by the University Dining Hall. Here 
it remained until September of the following year, when 
it returned to its old room in the rehabilitated Nassau 
Hall. The room had been restored and refurnished, with 
the aid and counsel of Dr. Maclean, the first great 
scientist of Princeton and long the most popular member 
of the Faculty. He had been made an honorary member 
in 1795, immediately after his arrival in this country 
from Scotland, and he was always ready to serve the 
Society in any way that would promote its welfare and 
usefulness. When he was appealed to in this instance 
he not only prepared plans for completely refitting the 
room, wbich the Society promptly adopted, but he 
assisted the committee in the actual work of carrying 
out the plans. The interest and zeal he uniformly dis- 
played in behalf of Clio were to be exemplified in still 
higher degree in the years to come by his greater son, 
John Maclean, during the prolonged period of his serv- 
ice as Professor and President of the College. 

But this reestablishment in Nassau Hall was to be 
of short duration. In 1804 the library building, now 
known as Stanhope Hall and given up to university 
offices, was completed. The upper story was set apart 
for the use of the two literary societies, the Whigs ob- 
taining the south half; Clio, the north. Into these new 



THE HOMES OF CLIO 57 

and comparatively spacious quarters the Society moved 
in May 1805 ; and here was its home for almost as long 
a period as it had dwelt in Nassau Hall. The new room 
must have seemed at first positively sumptuous. On 
each side was a platform of slight elevation. On that 
at the north end were placed the desks and chairs of 
the President and the other officers, resplendent with 
red damask fittings. Against the walls stood the book 
cases, in the next few years to be filled to overflowing. 
Around the room were ranged settees, and the remain- 
ing space was occupied by chairs. Curtains of white 
dimity and red damask obscured the windows. The 
floor was heavily carpeted. Wood stoves gave heat 
until 1838, when two coal stoves were purchased. Light 
was supplied by a gorgeous chandelier, hanging by iron 
chains from the centre of the curved ceiling, by "patent 
lamps," — whatever they were, — and by candles. The 
walls were covered with velvet paper. Off the Hall was 
a closet for the storage of records and paraphernalia. 
As the years went by, and the furnishings became 
worn and dingy, there were repeated repairs and re- 
newals, so as to render the Hall, as one report put it, 
"as neat and convenient as was consistent with pro- 
priety." What more, indeed, could be asked for? A 
typical entry in the minutes is that of August 26, 
1812, which records that new curtains for the Presi- 
dent's desk were ordered, to be "of the same kind of 



58 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

cloth with the present," and that there should be pro- 
cured "tinplates to be fastened round the holes where the 
stovepipe is inserted in the wall and that they be painted 
green." A year later a new carpet to cost one hundred 
and eight dollars was ordered purchased. It is evident 
that tobacco chewing was a common habit among the 
students of that day, for February 10, 1813, it was 
ordered "that those who use tobacco in the Hall should 
purchase themselves spitting-boxes" and should keep 
them in proper condition ; and that order evidently not 
having proved effective, in December of the same year 
the Society itself purchased twenty-four spitting-boxes. 
That must have brought one within easy range of every 
member! On September 21, 1825, the Hall ordered 
the purchase of "two silver-plated branched candle- 
sticks for the President's desk" and directed that "a 
new dark's (sic) desk be built in vacation." 

But with the increasing number of members there was 
growing consciousness of the discomfort of the Hall, for 
all its "neat and convenient" furnishing; increasing 
complaint of its closeness and oppressive atmosphere. 
This is reflected in a letter received by the Secretary of 
the Society in 1845 from the venerable Bishop of Ohio, 
the Rt. Rev. Charles P. Mcllvaine, who had graduated 
in the class of 1816, regretting his inability to preside 
at the annual meeting. He wrote: "I love to revisit 
the College and Hall, where I spent several happy and 



THE HOMES OF CLIO 59 

profitable years, and where my thoughts often linger 
in pleasing and painful retrospect, and it would give 
me real pleasure to recall the scenes of our Society by 
being again at one of its meetings, except that I should 
miss the darkness and closeness, the sperm grease and 
the faded hangings, and agreeable associations of the 
old Hall — that upper chamber, where the winged hours 
swiftly flew in pleasant literary intercourse and 
companionship." 

In the twenties the evidences of the discomfort of 
the Hall become more numerous, though a ventilator 
had been "inserted in the canopy of the Hall." Men of 
delicate constitution were excused from regular attend- 
ance at the meetings because of the hot and unwhole- 
some air; and others preferred to pay fines for absence 
"rather than bear the oppressive heat and confinement." 
Then the roof became leaky, the ceiling was soaked, and 
the plaster began to fall, while the Society's books and 
the furniture, recently renewed, suffered damage. Ap- 
peal after appeal was made to the Trustees for repairs, 
to which only tardy attention was paid. Conditions 
were becoming almost intolerable. The Hall was 
crowded with members and overflowing with books^ 
"Our difficulty," the annual report of 1830 declared, 
"is no longer to find books for the shelves but shelves 
for the books." In 1833 there began to be talk of 
seeking other quarters for the Society's library, which 



60 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

now numbered some twentj-five hundred volumes — 
"most of them well selected and well calculated for their 
situation." It was even suggested that the libraries of 
the two Halls be brought together in some college room 
and be thrown open to the public, and the Faculty were 
understood to favor this plan. But the Whigs would 
not listen to this proposal. "The reason^'^ says the 
annual report of that year, "we, of course are left to 
conjecture"; a clear insinuation of belief that the 
Whigs were reluctant to invite comparison of their lit- 
erary treasures with Clio's. 

In the annual report of 18B3 appears, also, the first 
intimation that the time was fast approaching when 
the need for another and ampler Hall must be met. 
Thereafter this question began to loom large — the mem- 
bership now being nearly one hundred — and was matter 
for limitless discussion and endless proposals. Complaint 
was made to the Faculty, who "indeed declared that they 
intended building us a Hall, as soon as pecuniary means 
should render it practicable"; but that was felt to be 
a vain hope. It was even suggested that a Hall should 
be built in cooperation with the Whigs. But here again 
"the natural jealousies which exist between the two 
Societies must ever prevent this plan from ever being 
effected." Finally, on June 15, 1835, a committee was 
appointed "to ascertain the best means of getting a new 
Hall, and the most preferable plans"; and the annual 



THE HOMES OF CLIO 61 

report of that year made a most earnest plea to the 
graduate members for assistance in attaining the de- 
sired object. The active members declared their readi- 
ness to do everything within their power, but the burden 
was too great for them to bear alone. 

The annual meeting was deeply impressed by the plea 
and immediately, on motion of Parke Godwin ('34), 
later a famous editor of New York, appointed a com- 
mittee to confer with a committee of the Board of 
Trustees in regard to a site. This committee promptly 
reported that the committee of the Trustees would 
recommend to the Board the appropriation of a site. 
Thereupon the meeting appointed a standing com- 
mittee on the proposed new Hall to deal with the Board 
and to take whatever other action it thought proper 
to advance the project. This committee consisted of 
Professors John Maclean and Albert B. Dod and Dr. 
John H. Woodhull, all men of great efficiency and 
loyalty to the Society. Indeed, too great praise cannot 
be given to Dr. Maclean, later to be for many years the 
honored President of the College, and to the lovable 
Professor Dod for the untiring zeal, wise counsel, and 
unsparing effort with which at this period, and always, 
they served the interests of the Society. This committee 
reported to the Hall in February, 1836, that there was 
no doubt that the Trustees would grant a site, and 
advised that effort be made at once to raise money for 



62 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

the building. Meanwhile, the Whigs were feeling the 
same need of larger and better quarters and were taking 
similar action toward its satisfaction. 

Already in January the Hall had appointed a com- 
mittee to invite subscriptions from the graduate mem- 
bers. Now it made every member a committee of one 
to solicit funds. Money and subscriptions came slowly, 
but there was sufficient encouragement by June 1 to 
justify the appointment of a committee on plans. Pro- 
fessors Dod and Maclean and two members of the class 
of 1837, Alexander H. Bd-iley, of New York, and Joseph 
Branch, of North Carolina (later to be prominent citi- 
zens), formed this committee. A week later Professor 
Dod was appointed custodian of all moneys received for 
the building fund; and a week after that a building 
committee was appointed, consisting of Professors Dod 
and Maclean and the Rev. Daniel Wells ; and this com- 
mittee was directed to "proceed immediately to the 
erection of the new building when a plan shall be agreed 
on and an architect procured." The building com- 
mittee was subsequently empowered "to settle on the 
plan." 

It was not until the following spring that these pre- 
liminaries were arranged and the subscriptions were suffi- 
cient (about half the sum required) to permit the break- 
ing of ground. In the meantime persistent efforts, by 
letters and personal solicitation (Mr. Wells being espe- 



THE HOMES OF CLIO 63 

cially active and efficient in the latter), were continued 
to enlist the pecuniary aid of the old graduates; but 
the results were far from commensurate with the So- 
ciety's enthusiastic hopes. Even the vigorous appeal 
at the annual meeting of 1837 "to the generosity of our 
elder brothers entreating their further cooperation," so 
that "an abiding, inexpressible sense of dependence," 
which indebtedness would cause, might not "paralyze 
our efforts," brought little substantial support. On 
the other hand, the active members contributed gener- 
ously, and liberal appropriation was made from the 
hall treasury. 

So, when the building was completed, early in 1838, 
there remained a depressing burden of debt, and there 
were no funds in the treasury to provide furniture. 

The building contract had amounted to $7,150; and 
this had been a great bargain for the Society, because 
of the low prices for materials and labor due to the 
prevailing business depression. At the time of the 
completion of the building in March 1838, the contrac- 
tor had received $4,150 ; but of this amount Messrs. Dod 
and Maclean had themselves advanced $1,650, so slow 
had many subscribers to the building fund been in meet- 
ing their obligations. Thus, the Society owed the con- 
tractor $3,000, the building committee $1,650, and 
bad no money for furnishing the Hall. The only offset 
was certain unpaid subscriptions, the hope of obtaining 



64 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

more subscriptions now that the Hall was actually in 
existence, and the regular income of the Hall from dues 
and fines. But little could be expected from the latter, 
even by cutting off appropriations for books, which was 
done, as it was hardly more than sufficient for current 
necessary expenses. 

Again Messrs. Dod and Maclean came to the rescue. 
They were willing to wait on the convenience of the Hall 
for reimbursement. They became surety at the United 
States Bank for a loan of one thousand dollars to be 
used in furnishing the Hall, and they satisfied the con- 
tractor by giving him three negotiable bonds of one 
thousand dollars each, for the payment of which they 
assumed personal responsibility. Efforts were contin- 
uous during the next few years in soliciting money to 
pay off the debt. By 1844 this had been reduced to 
twenty-five hundred dollars, and, by strenuous solicita- 
tion, subscriptions about equal to that sum had been 
obtained. We hear nothing more about the debt until 
early in 1856, when a committee was appointed to in- 
quire into its status. The committee applied to Dr. 
Maclean, then in the third year of his Presidency, for 
information, the members of the Hall at that time 
apparently being in complete ignorance of the matter. 
Dr. Maclean promptly replied in the following char- 
acteristic letter: 



THE HOMES OF CLIO 65 

College of New Jersey 

Princeton, March 14, 1856. 
To the Committee of the 

Cliosophic Society: 

When the present Hall was built the Building Com- 
mittee had a settlement with Mr. Charles Steadman, the 
builder; and they gave him three bonds of $1000 each 
payable in one, two, and three years. The first was paid 
in full. The second was transferred to the estate of the 
late Robert Voorhees, deceased, and by his executors was 
conveyed to the Trustees of the College in payment of 
certain moneys due to the College. The third became the 
property of the Princeton Bank. To render the bonds 
negotiable, they were signed by the late Professor Dod 
and myself, not as members of the Building Committee, 
but as individuals ; thus making ourselves personally 
responsible for the payment of the bonds. It was only 
in this way that we could effect a settlement. Towards 
the payment of these bonds, subscriptions were obtained 
from members of the Society both in College and abroad, 
sufficient — or nearly so — had they all been paid, to pay 
the bonds in full. But many who subscribed never paid 
anything. 

On the bond yet in the possession of the Princeton 
Bank there is due the sum of $180.92 ; viz. 
To the bank, principal and interest, .... $90.65 
To John Maclean, interest paid by him, 90.27 

$180.92 

On the bond in the possession of the Trustees 

of the College there is due the sum of 864.57 

with interest from the 27th of June 1844 — 

nearly twelve years. 
Interest to the 27th of June 1856 will amount 

to 616.49 

Principal and interest $1,481.06 



66 'IHE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

Should the matter be brought before the Board of 
Trustees at their next meeting, I think they would 
willingly agree to give up the interest and receive the 
principal by installments, say $100 a session. If the 
Society should approve of this suggestion, I will bring 
the subject before the Board and endeavor to have it 
adjusted in this way. I will also contribute, should my 
life be spared, $25.00 a session for four years toward 
liquidating the debt. In making this suggestion and 
these offers I am influenced by a desire to have the whole 
matter settled in a way that shall not be burdensome to 
the Society and at the same time to prevent any future 
calls upon the members of the Society not connected 
with the College. 

At the time the last subscriptions were obtained, it 
was understood that no further demands would be made 
upon those who had subscribed. And it is but equitable 
that those who enjoy the benefits of the arrangements 
made by those who preceded them should share in the 
burdens. 

Respectfully, 

John Maclean. 

The Hall gratefully accepted Dr. Maclean's sugges- 
tion, feeling, as the committee expressed it, that "the 
honor of our beloved Society demands that she should 
be freed from debt, especially since a portion of the debt 
is held against her by the Trustees of the College, w'ho 
are composed of members of our rival Society as well 
as of Clios." The Trustees granted relief from inter- 
est, and payments began to be made. It was not until 
the beginning of 1861, however, nearly twenty-three 



THE HOMES OF CLIO 67 

years after the completion of the Hall, that the last 
dollar of its cost was paid. 

While many sons of Clio contributed freely in money 
and effort to make the building project feasible, yet in 
a very true sense the Hall was a monument to the gener- 
osity, the patience, and the indefatigable labors of those 
two noble and well-beloved men, Albert B, Dod and John 
Maclean. There is ample evidence in the records that 
the Society at the time recognized its obligation to these 
devoted men. But this grandiloquent passage from the 
annual report of 1837 must suffice for citation : "In the 
name of our Society we desire to express its acknowl- 
edgments to the Building Committee, to whose unwearied 
exertion is principally owing the happy consummation 
of our oft-repeated wishes, and to whom we resign the 
chief praise, well knowing that if unassisted by their 
directions and uncountenanced by their support, our 
timid attempts, if we had possessed courage to exert 
them, would have been as abortive as our knowledge and 
experience are limited." Which, one must say, is very 
handsome, indeed ! And when Dr. Maclean retired from 
the Presidency, the annual meeting, June 23, 1868, 
adopted this resolution: "Resolved that this Society 
tenders to Rev. John Maclean D.D., President of our 
College, on his retirement from the active duties of the 
Presidency of our College, the hearty expression of our 
kind wishes. We recognize his faithful devotion to the 



68 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

interests of the College in discharge of the duties of his 
office and his interest as a faithful friend and brother 
in our Society. We pray that God's hlessing may at- 
tend him and the consciousness of duty well done make 
his heart glad." 

In this same annual report of 1837, the joy and exul- 
tation with which the Society watched the progress of 
the building and anticipated its occupancy are vividly 
reflected. The project of building had at first "seemed 
almost visionary," its realization impossible. But de- 
termination had triumphed in "the erection of an edifice 
which would stand an endless monument of the enterprise 
and perseverance of our Society; a temple dedicated to 
science and friendship, erected by the free-will offerings 
of affection and the voluntary contributions of grati- 
tude." Throughout the year feeling and interest had 
been absorbed in the prosecution of the enterprise. Whig 
Hall might be similar in size and appearance, but Clio 
had been long in advance and owed its being to "the 
willing and exclusive efforts of brothers," while Whig 
had had "the extorted assistance of aliens and stran- 
gers." "And now," to quote the exact language, which 
swells to a flood of turgid eloquence, "when, after the 
excitement of the enterprise has abated, we see our beau- 
tiful building in sure evidence before us, we feel like one 
surprised and confounded at the substantial representa- 
tion of that which realizes some visionary creature of a 



THE HOMES OF CLIO 69 

wayward imagination, or which has had an ideal type in 
the bold conceptions and rare combinations of a dream- 
er's fancy, and we are almost compelled to suborn our 
judgment to testify the veracity of our senses. We 
know not which most to admire, the bold magnificence of 
the enterprise, or the untiring energy which has effected 
its full accomplishment. It invests our Society with new 
beauties and increased interest, as it distinguishes the 
period, when discarding every remnant of weakness, it 
emerges before us in all the dignity of full maturity. 
It presents our institution in an aspect which must de- 
mand a modification of the feeling with which we have 
been accustomed to regard its interests and cherish its 
memory, a feeling distinct from blind and exclusive 
and sometimes puerile fondness." 

Evidently there was a strain upon vocabulary and 
rhetoric alike adequately to express the enthusiasm and 
exhilaration with which the young Cliosophians of that 
day looked forward to entrance on their new domains. 
This came about the very last of March 1838, when 
twenty men were designated to help move the furniture 
from the old Hall to the new, under the cover of dark- 
ness, so as to hide its quality as much as possible from 
the envious eyes of prying Whigs. The library, how- 
ever, remained for several months longer in the old 
Hall, pending the fitting up of the basement room for 
its reception. The first meeting in the new Hall was 



70 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

on the evening of April 4. It had been arranged that 
special exercises should signalize the occasion and that 
Professor Dod should make a dedicatory address. But 
this address was postponed to the annual meeting, and 
the minutes fail to give us details of that first evening's 
exercises. Perhaps the several blank pages in the min- 
ute book at this point indicate that some one neglected 
his duty of recording the events of the celebration. We 
may be sure, however, that "a pleasant time was had." 

The amplitude, the convenience, the comfort, and the 
dignity of the new Hall, as compared with the old, were 
most impressive. It is not surprising that the annual 
report of that year felicitated the Society on having bid 
"adieu to the time-honored Hall where her sons were 
accustomed to assemble" and on the fact that she now sat 
"clothed in beauty and surrounded with every conven- 
ience in a more splendid edifice." The meetings now 
were "seasons of mutual enjoyment and their approach 
was not dreaded as formerly, when health was endan- 
gered and comfort sacrificed by attention to the duties of 
the Hall." 

Whig Hall was not ready for occupancy until six 
months after Clio was installed in her new temple. The 
new Halls were so placed (in accordance with a general 
plan for the development of the college grounds, which 
had been drawn up by the famous Professor Joseph 
Henry) as directly to face, Clio, the walk from Nassau 



THE HOMES OF CLIO 71 

Street leading past the west end of Nassau Hall; and, 
Whig, that passing the east end. They were architectur- 
ally the most beautiful structures on the campus and 
long retained that distinction. They were in the Ionic 
style, had the same outward appearance, and were of 
like size — sixty-two feet long, forty-one feet wide, and 
two stories high. The columns of the hexastyle porticos 
were copied from those of a small temple which stood 
on the southern bank of the Ilissus, not far from 
Athens, near the fountain of Callirhoe. The temple of 
Dionysos (or Bacchus), at Teos in Asia Minor, was the 
model in other respects. "All the forms," as Professor 
Giger wrote, were "simple but elegant and pleasing." 
It may be of interest to note that the portico of Clio 
Hall is still standing, being used to mark the entrance 
from Mercer Street to Professor Allan Marquand's 
grounds. 

Of the interior with its furnishings, we have few de- 
tails. We know from the annual report of 1838 that it 
was "indeed worthy of being shown to the world," if such 
exhibition had not been unlawful. The assembly hall was 
richly carpeted and the windows heavily draped. Al- 
most the last action taken in the old meeting room shows 
that the tobacco chewing habit still prevailed. It was 
voted, "That in order to prevent the deleterious conse- 
quences of tobacco juice upon the carpet, the building 
committee be instructed to procure a§ many spitboxea 



72 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

as they may deem necessary, and that any person spit- 
ting on the carpet shall be subjected to a fine of one 
dollar." On the walls hung many portraits of famous 
sons of Clio of other days. A great chandelier, the gift 
of Matthew Newkirk of Philadelphia, an honorary mem- 
ber of 1836, and later a trustee of the College, sus- 
pended in the centre of the room, was the principal source 
of illumination. Large wood stoves furnished heat until 
the autumn of 1852, when after some years of agitation 
a furnace was installed. Already, a few months before, 
gas for lighting had been piped into the Hall at a cost 
of $230, the Society agreeing to pay 10 per cent yearly 
on this cost until the company was reimbursed. The 
lower story was fitted up for the library, and in connec- 
tion therewith a reading room was established in 1840. 
Many of the leading English and American magazines 
and newspapers were subscribed for, and the reading 
room was open in the day time, except during study 
hours, on every day but Sunday. As the years passed 
by there were frequent renewals of furniture and decora- 
tion, and large changes were made in the arrangement of 
the assembly hall and of the lower floor. 

This Hall served the needs of the Society for many 
generations of students. But in the late seventies, with 
the great growth of the College, and with the increasing 
demands of more prosperous conditions of life, its inade- 
quacy of room and its lack of modem facilities evoked 



THE HOMES OF CLIO 73 

constant dissatisfaction and complaint. The time was 
come, it was felt with growing impatience, when the 
building which had been regarded as "an edifice which 
would stand an endless monument" should give place 
to a more imposing structure, when brick and wood 
should yield to stone and marble. It required years of 
patient effort, however, to realize the Society's aspira- 
tion. Precisely the same situation confronted our 
friends, the Whigs, and the same need for enlarged 
quarters and ampler facilities was experienced by them. 
There was thus again concert, or rather rivalry, of 
effort on the part of the two Societies in the movement 
which resulted in the erection of the present stately 
buildings. 

This movement was started, or at least received its 
first impulse, in Clio, at the annual meeting of 1876, 
when William Libbey ('77) in the annual report for that 
year dwelt upon the urgent need of a new and larger 
Hall. A committee was named which reported at the 
next annual meeting against the immediate feasibility 
of the undertaking in view of the general business de- 
pression. The subject was kept alive in the next few 
years by frequent discussion, but nothing was accom- 
plished. Finally, the annual meeting of 1883 decided 
that the time for action was come, and it authorized its 
chairman, Edward S. Green, to appoint a committee to 
raise funds. Of this committee Professor John T. Duf- 



74 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

field was chairman, and no one can be thought of that 
could have proved more zealous and resourceful than 
he. The other members were the Rev. William Harris, 
Treasurer of the College, Caleb S. Green and Charles E. 
Green, of Trenton, John R. Emery, of Newark, the Rev. 
S. B. Dod, of Hoboken, and DeWitt C. Blair, of Belvi- 
dere. To this committee were subsequently added the 
Rev. Samuel H. Studdiford, the Rev. George B. Stewart, 
Messrs. Bayard Henry and Cyrus H. McCormick, and 
Professors Andrew F. West, Henry van Dyke, William 
Libbey, and William F. Magie. The committee was 
continued from year to year, reporting at each annual 
meeting, until 1890, when its final report was accepted 
and it was discharged. Throughout these years it was 
engaged in the arduous and thankless labor of soliciting 
subscriptions by correspondence and personal appeals 
from the graduate members. 

It was decided at the outset, after consultation be- 
tween special committees of the two Societies, that the 
new Halls should be of similar construction, that they 
should be of the same style and architecture as the old 
Halls, and that their cost should be $25,000 each. It 
was this sum that Dr. Duffield's committee undertook to 
raise. The task proved to be even more difficult than 
the similar undertaking of fifty years before had been; 
though the sum required, in view of the vastly increased 
number of members and the greater prosperity of the 



THE HOMES OF CLIO 75 

times, was proportionately smaller. At the annual 
meeting in June, 1889, the committee could report as a 
result of its years of persistent canvassing, "by every 
known method," a total of subscriptions of only thirteen 
thousand dollars, from one hundred and forty-three 
persons. That was only about one in ten of living 
graduates. The committee was most despondent over 
the outlook. It feared the entire project would fall 
through, to the vast detriment not only of the Society, 
but of the interests of the College itself. While the 
Whigs were not much better off so far as subscriptions 
were concerned, three Whig graduates had offered to 
supply what further amount was needed and take the 
bonds of the Society. The only hope Dr. Duffield could 
see was that some good friend of the Society and the 
College would come forward with a large subscription. 

This report marked the hour of darkness preceding 
the dawn. Before commencement week was over, Mr. 
John I. Blair, to whom Princeton is indebted for so 
much, subscribed five thousand dollars. Not long after, 
Mr. Cyrus H. McCormick added one thousand dollars 
more to his already large subscription. Under the 
stimulus of these subscriptions, and through the per- 
sonal efforts and influence of Dr. Duffield, Dr. Studdi- 
ford, and Mr. McCormick, the fund was completed be- 
fore the following Christmas. 

Meanwhile, plans for the new Halls had been sub- 



76 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

mitted by Mr. Page Brown of New York, the execution 
of which would require a much larger expenditure than 
had been agreed upon by the two Societies. The Clio 
committee was in favor of adhering to the $25,000 
limit and wished for a modification of the plans. But 
the Whigs adopted the Brown plans and let the contract 
for a marble structure. The prospective total cost of 
construction would be in excess of $40,000. Of course, 
Clio was not to be outdone by Whig, even if the Trustees 
had not insisted that the buildings should be alike. The 
Brown plans were therefore adopted and preparations 
were made to begin building. 

At the annual meeting of 1890 (June 10), the sub- 
scriptions, then amounting to $27,000, were increased 
to $31,000, and committees on finance and building were 
appointed. The Hon. Caleb S. Green was made chair- 
man of the Finance Committee. The other members 
were Mr. Charles E. Green, Treasurer, Professor John 
T. Duffield, and Messrs. Cyrus H. McCormick and 
Bayard Henry. This committee was authorized to issue 
bonds for whatever sum was needed in excess of the sub- 
scriptions. The Building Committee was composed of 
Professor Cyrus F. Brackett, chairman, Professors An- 
drew F. West, William F. Magie, and William Libbey, 
and Messrs. E. C. Osborn and Leroy H. Anderson. The 
two committees worked together in perfect harmony; 
indeed virtually coalesced and acted as one body. Some 



THE HOMES OF CLIO 77 

of the men appointed dropped out of active participa- 
tion in the work and there were added Messrs. DeWitt 
C. Blair, Wm. B. Hornblower, and Henry G. Duffield. 

The men who gave most time and thought to the enter- 
prise, who were most active in carrying it to a pros- 
perous conclusion, were Messrs. Charles E. Green, 
McCormick, and Henry, and Professors Magie and 
Libbey. The zeal they displayed, the amount of work 
they did, the care and responsibility they assumed, can 
only be appreciated by examining the records. To them 
particularly the Society owes lasting recognition and 
gratitude. 

In the spring of 1890 the old Hall was demolished. 
The library was stored in Dickinson Hall and the Col- 
lege Library, and the meetings of the Society were held 
during construction in the old chapel. The official 
home of the Society, however, throughout this period, 
was in the upper room of Stanhope Hall which had housed 
the Society from 1805 to 1838. There the records and 
some of the books were kept ; there the committees were 
accustomed to meet; there all the Society's activities 
except the regular meetings were carried forward. 

The corner-stone of the present Hall was laid on the 
afternoon of June 20, 1890, simultaneously with the 
laying of the Whig comer-stone. A joint procession 
of the alumni of the two Halls, in separate parallel 
bodies, was formed in front of University Hall, and 



78 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

marched down Nassau Street, Dr. McCosh heading the 
Whig and President Patton the Clio, to the two en- 
trances to the campus leading to the Halls. The under- 
graduates of each Society lined the respective walks and 
fell in behind the graduates. The heads of the two parts 
of the procession, which divided at Nassau Street, 
reached their goals at the same moment. The platform 
at Clio was filled with distinguished alumni and honor- 
ary members. Among them were President Patton, 
Cyrus H. McCormick ('79), who had presided earlier in 
the day at the annual meeting, Samuel H. Pennington, 
M.D. ('25), the Rev. Albert Williams ('29), the Hon. 
William Paterson ('35), grandson of the William Pater- 
son who had so large a part in founding the Society, 
the Rev. John Rodgers ('41), Professor J. S. Schanck 
('40), Professor John T. Duffield ('41), DeWitt C. 
Blair ('56), Charles E. Green ('60), and the Rev. David 
R. Frazer, D.D. ('61). 

The doxology was sung by the combined assemblage 
and prayer was offered by Dr. McCosh, and then the 
ceremonies of each Hall proceeded separately. Presi- 
dent Patton laid the corner-stone for Clio, using a silver 
trowel, appropriately inscribed, which Dr. Duffield had 
had made for the occasion, and which two years later he 
presented to the Hall. In the comer-stone was placed a 
copper box, hermetically sealed, containing the follow- 
ing books and papers : 



THE HOMES OF CLIO 79 

President Maclean's History of the College; 
Professor Giger's History of the Society ; 
General Catalogue of the College of 1886; 
Annual Catalogues 1886 to 1890; 
General Catalogue of the Seminary ; 
Annual Catalogue of the Seminary 1889-90; 
A list of the names of the Building Committee; 
Photographs of the College Buildings; 
Photographs of Presidents Maclean, McCosh, and 

Patton ; 
Honor List and commencement appointments of the 

class of '90; 
The Nassau Literary Magazine; 
The Princetonian ; 
Bric-a-Brac of 1889-'90; 
Princeton Press, May 24, 1890, containing article 

on the date of the Society's origin. 

When the stone had been declared well and duly laid, 
the Rev. Howard Duffield, D.D. ('73), delivered an ad- 
dress, in which the spirit, the glory, and the achieve- 
ments of the Society were portrayed in periods of 
glowing eloquence. The orator reached his climax in 
his peroration which evoked enthusiastic applause. His 
words were: 

Our Fraternity triumphantly challenges the wasting 
power of the years. Its elemental principles compel 
Time to pay tribute unto them. The culture that in- 
heres in its name, the vigor displayed in its history, the 
soul force developed under its discipline, are ever 
strengthening and broadening and casting off all swath- 
ing bands. Yonder relic [of the old Hall] is but a 



80 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

stepping-stone of the Society's dead self, on which it 
rises unto higher things. And as with heartfelt joy we 
cross the threshold of the radiant future, as with exul- 
tant hearts we stand beside this stone, that carries in 
its bosom the pledge of a career that shall outshine the 
glories of the past, in the fullness of our confident de- 
sire, we are fain to cry aloud: 

Hail, O Clio, honored and well-beloved! O Muse 
benign, all Hail! To thee we bow with renewed devo- 
tion. From thee we draw fresh inspiration. For thee 
thy loyal children seek to rear a stately shrine. In the 
days that are to come, may a continual throng of thy 
loyal sons, ever mindful of thy kindly nurture, hither 
return to deck thy walls with the shields of their vic- 
torious achievement. May earth become brighter, and 
humanity's cup sweeter, as thy children spread wider the 
spirit of that sublime legend, in whose meaning thou dost 
school them, — Prodesse quam Conspici- 

But the laying of the corner-stone was only a begin- 
ning. There were difficult days ahead for the committee. 
It was not until July 1891 that the contract for con- 
struction was let. It then became apparent that the cost 
was going to be far in excess of the amount subscribed. 
The committee authorized the issuance of bonds to the 
amount of $25,000. Mr. Blair took $5,000, Mr. Mc- 
Cormick $4,000, and Mr. Henry $2,000; while some 
friend of the Hall, whose name was not revealed, 
guaranteed the sum of $4,000. At the annual meeting 
of 1892 the Building Committee reported that many 
of the alumni were unwilling to subscribe as long as 



THE HOMES OF CLIO 81 

bonds were outstanding; that thereupon Mr. Blair had 
generously agreed to cancel his bonds, provided the 
other bondholders would do the same and the guaran- 
teed $4,000 was paid; and that Messrs. McCormick, 
Henry, and the unnamed guarantor would meet this 
condition, in case the members of Hall, alumni and 
undergraduates, would now raise the additional sum of 
$10,000. The $25,000 thus secured would, it was 
thought, with the $33,000 already subscribed, com- 
pletely finish the Hall and leave the Society free of 
debt, so that it should "be able to go on doing the im- 
portant work it has always done in Princeton College." 
This generous offer and appeal was not made in vain. 
The brief minute of the annual meeting tells the story : 
"After some preparatory remarks the entire amount 
necessary to complete the Hall was raised amid great 
enthusiasm." It was thought at the time that it would 
never be necessary again to appeal to the annual 
meeting for money, but a year later, on the report of 
progress by the committee, "the sum of $5,000 was 
generously raised for the liquidation of unexpected de- 
ficiencies." It was not till the annual meeting of 1895 
that the committee could make its final report and ask to 
be discharged. Then it could say that the work begun 
ten years before had been brought to a successful end, 
that "the building was finished and furnished as far as 
possible." The report of the treasurer showed the total 



82 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

cost of the building and furnishing had been just over 
$66,000 and that there remained in his hands a balance 
of $252.13. It was at once voted to use this balance 
to obtain the memorial tablets of bronze that now adorn 
the Hall. It is no wonder that the meeting, in discharg- 
ing the committee, which had labored so long, so 
patiently, and so efficiently, passed a resolution expres- 
sive of the "deep and lasting gratitude of the Hall for 
the great work they had accomplished." 

While the completion of the Hall was delayed, its 
construction was so far advanced as to permit its occu- 
pancy in June 1892. The first meeting in the Hall was 
on June 8, which by a fortunate, but apparently fortui- 
tous, coincidence was the anniversary of the reconsti- 
tuting of the Society in 1770 ; the day so long annually 
celebrated with commemorative exercises. Nothing out 
of the ordinary marked this first meeting. The real 
dedication, though not so in name, came a week later 
at the annual meeting when, as already noted, the mem- 
bers present, rejoicing in the Society's new and splen- 
did abode, contributed ten thousand dollars to the 
building fund, and Messrs. Blair, McCormick, Henry, 
and the unnamed friend declared their more than gen- 
erous benefaction. 

No extended description of the Halls is required. 
They follow pretty closely the lines of the buildings they 
replaced, only they are much larger in all their pro- 



THE HOMES OF CLIO 83 

portions. They have three stories instead of two and 
are wider and deeper. They are the only structures of 
marble on the campus ; the only structures that exem- 
plify Greek architecture — ^and this they do in altogether 
worthy fashion. They stand somewhat nearer each 
other than the old Halls stood — noble and conspicuous 
sentinels of the two southern angles of the historic 
cannon quadrangle, on whose northern side rises ivy- 
covered Old Nassau, the venerable and venerated mother 
of us all. In its interior arrangements, facilities, and 
furnishing, the present home of Clio, like its prototype, 
is "indeed worthy of being shown to the world," and such 
exhibition is no longer unlawful. If it is not — any 
more than was its predecessor — "an edifice which will 
stand an endless monument," its solidity of construc- 
tion and the durability of its material give promise that 
it will continue to afford shelter for the votaries of Clio 
through innumerable student generations. 



CHAPTER IV 

Relations and Rivalries 

The American Whig and Cliosophic Societies have 
long been a distinctive feature of Princeton College and 
University life. In earlier times similar societies flour- 
ished at other colleges ; but in all the older institutions, 
at least, they gradually lost vitality and disappeared 
under the disintegrating influence of the Greek letter 
fraternities. It was only by heroic and long-continued 
efforts of Trustees and Faculty, to which Whig and 
Clio gave effectual support, that the Greek incursion 
of Princeton was resisted and finally repelled. Other- 
wise, doubtless. Whig and Clio would long ago have 
suffered the same fate that befel the great literary and 
debating societies of other colleges. As it is they re- 
main, the oldest literary societies in America. 

The two Societies were created by the same impulse 
and have always had much the same ideals and purposes. 
Their members were first of all loyal sons of a common 
fostering mother. They were simply two branches of 
the same family, acting separately and in emulation for 
the better attainment of literary culture and forensic 
skill. It is as natural for students to divide into groups 

84. 



RELATIONS AND RIVALRIES 85 

or parties as for men in every other relation of life. It 
so happened that for some time most of the students 
from the South became Whigs ; most from the North, 
Cliosophians. Once the two Societies were firmly estab- 
lished, they were recognized by the college authorities 
as a serviceable instrumentality for supplementing the 
work of the classroom. Every member of the Fac- 
ulty became identified with one or the other, and was 
ready on every occasion to play the part of "guide, 
philosopher, and friend." 

The Societies have always acted together in further- 
ance or defense of their common interests. But as 
between themselves they have maintained an attitude of 
rivalry or hostility — for the most part of an amiable 
or benevolent quality. In their direct dealings with 
each other by means of correspondence or through com- 
mittees, they have usually manifested the lofty bearing 
and formality of "high contracting powers" with great 
issues at stake. Each has been quick, on occasion, to 
take offense at any seeming discourtesy of communica- 
tion or demeanor on the part of the other in inter-hall 
negotiations or complaints. And official letters of de- 
fense, disavowal, or apology have been models of suave 
or severe diplomatic expression. 

During the first few decades of the existence of the So- 
cieties, when the total number of students in College was 
small, and practically every student was in one Society 



86 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

or the other, the rivalry between them was most intense. 
It became at the outset so open and obnoxious, as we 
have seen, as to lead to the suppression of the parent so- 
cieties. And in the next few years "paper wars" of 
greater or less acrimony occurred from time to time, 
when the faults or foibles of each Society or of in- 
dividual members were set forth and commented on by 
the wits or satirists of the other in wordy diatribes 
or doggerel songs (usually anonymous) which were 
publicly posted or circulated from hand to hand. 
In verse-making of this delectable sort the Whigs 
seem to have had the best of it. Evidence in 
support of this inference, as well as proof that 
a very vigorous paper war was waged between the two 
Societies soon after their revival, is afforded by a 
manuscript volume discovered among the papers of 
William Bradford (Whig, 1772), which is now preserved 
in the library of the Pennsylvania Historical Society. 
The volume is entitled, "Satires against the Tories — 
Written in the Last War between the Whigs & Clio- 
sophians in which the Former Obtained a Compleat 
Victory." It is made up of squibs, for the most part in 
rhyme, from the pens of the four men who had been the 
leaders in forming the Whig Society. The best of these 
wretched performances are the work of Philip Freneau, 
now remembered as the poet of the Revolution ; the most 
execrable, that of James Madison. There is a plentiful 



RELATIONS AND RIVALRIES 87 

lack of real wit in these invectives, but an abundance of 
coarse abuse and gross characterization. In 1775 
Freneau published a satire, entitled "Mac Swiggen," in 
which he embodied many of the verses he had perpetrated 
in this paper war — about all that would bear the light, 
as Professor Fred Lewis Pattee says in the introduction 
to his admirable edition of Freneau's poems. Who the 
Cliosophian was that Freneau was attacking, is not 
known ; nor, of course, do we know what provocation he 
had given, nor What was the nature of his reply. In- 
dubitably, he did his best — or worst — in the contest of 
vituperation. A few of Freneau's verses will suffice to 
indicate the character of his splenetic effusion: 

"What swarms of vermin from the sultry South 
Like frogs surround thy pestilential mouth — 
Clad in the garb of sacred sanctity. 
What madness prompts thee to invent a lie! 
Thou base defender of a wretched crew. 
Thy tongue let loose on those you never knew. 
The human spirit with the brutal join'd. 
The imps of Orcus in thy breast combin'd. 
The genius barren, and the wicked heart, 
Prepared to take each trifling scoundrel's part, 
The turned-up nose, the monkey's foolish face. 
The scorn of reason, and your sire's disgrace — 
Assist me, Gods, to drive this dog of rhime 
Back to the torments of his native clime. 

Come on, Mac Swiggen, come — your muse is willing, 
Your prose is merry, but your verse is killing — 
Come on, attack me with that whining prose. 
Your beard is red, and swine like is your nose, 



88 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

Like burning bush your bristly head of hair, 
The ugliest image of a Greenland bear — 
Come on, attack me with your choicest rhimes, 
Sound void of sense betrays the unmeaning chimes. 
Come, league your forces; all your wit combine. 
Your wit not equal to the bold design — 
The heaviest arms the Muse can give I wield 
To stretch Mac Swiggen floundering on the field, 
'Swiggen, who, aided by some spurious Muse, 
But bellows nonsense, & but writes abuse. 

Mac Swiggen, hear — Be wise in time to come, 
A dunce by nature, bid thy Muse be dumb. 
Lest you, devoted to the infernal skies. 
Descend, like Lucifer, no more to rise !" 

Another and brighter example of Freneau's college 
poetizing is given by Professor Giger in his History of 
Clio. It is a rhyming skit of five stanzas, entitled "The 
Distrest Orator," provoked by a Cliosophian, Robert 
Archibald's "memory failing him in the midst of a public 
discourse he had got by rote." In this poor Archibald 
(1772) is made to declare: 

"My words were few, I must confess. 
And very silly my address, — 

A melancholy tale! 
In short I knew not what to say, 
I squinted this and the other way, 

Like Lucifer." 

"What could be done? I gaped once more. 
And set the audience in a roar; 
They laughed me out of face. 
I turned my eyes from north to south, 
I clapped my fingers in my mouth — 
And down I came!" 




William Paterson, Class of 1763 



[From the portrait bequeathed to Princeton University by his grandson, 
William Paterson, Class of 1835] 



RELATIONS AND RIVALRIES 89 

And ten years later Ashbel Green, who was to become 
President of the College in 1812, lampooned a Clio- 
sophian in verses which he says he "afterwards had 
great cause to regret; for a copy had been preserved 
among the students, and when the subject of ridicule 
(Gilbert T. Snowden) became a tutor, he was annoyed 
by hearing this song sung by the rogues of the Col- 
lege, whom he had offended. I was at the time a 
professor in the institution." 

We have entertaining testimony of another paper 
war a few years later in a most interesting "Journal at 
Nassau Hall," now in the Library of Congress, a photo- 
graphic copy of which is possessed by the University 
Library. It is a diary kept during the greater part 
of the year 1786 by a Clio member of the class of 1787, 
whose name is nowhere given. From internal evidence, 
however, one may guess with reasonable confidence that 
the diarist was George Crow, of Delaware. Whoever 
he was, he writes : 

March 12 [1786] Sunday.— After prayers [Ed- 
ward] Johnston [1786, Clio] comes into our room, hav- 
ing found, he says, a paper of characteristicks in the 
window. Our fire not unraked* having gotten up too 

* This is not a double negative, as it appears. "Unraked" is 
the past participle of the verb "unrake" which like uncover, undo, 
and untie^ is used in a positive sense. The fire in the fireplace was 
covered or raked over at night, and was unraked in the morning. 
January 7, the diarist writes: "Don't wake till 3d bell done; 
get up in a great hurry; go into Hall unbuttoned; not time to 



90 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

late this morning to do it — ^but soon do it & light a 
candle [Prayers were early in those days !] and find 
them to be against the Whigs of the Senior class & a 
very dirty piece. Snatch them from Johnston, intend- 
ing to burn them to keep them from going any further, 
but Firman [probably William Gordon Forman. 1786, 
Whig], coming into the Room with Johnston, goes out 
and spreads them about. Do not give them to Johnston 
but keep them to burn as being highly injurious to our 
Society to appear being so low & dirty. [Henry Em- 
bree] Coleman [1786, Whig] came in shortly, but we 
tell him they are burnt. T[homas] Grant [1786, Clio] 
& Jn. Read [John Reed, 1787, Clio] in Room. Hunt 
[there were two Hunts, Ralph and William Pitt, in the 
class of 1786, both Whigs] Sz Stevens [probably a Whig 
who did not graduate] also come and want to see them 
very much; also M[aturin] Livingston [1786] [Daniel] 
Thew [1787], [John N.] Abiel [Abeel, 1787] [all 
Whigs], &;c., &c., all having heard of them. Begin to 
suspect — little that it was a manwvre of theirs & express 
the greatest contempt for it & its author as scandilous 
& scurrilous &c. . . . After Recit'n [in Religion] walk 
upon the Campus with J. Read. [Edward] Graham 
[1786, Whig], & [Abimael Youngs] Nicoll [1786, 
Whig] meet us. Graham starts the Character's. I 
justify myself as ignorant of the author &c., & express 
my contempt of them. He enquires his Character. I 
give some of the words, but tell [him] I did not attend 
them. . . . After Supper [Richard Hugg] King [1786, 
Whig] attacks me about them, but intimates his appro- 
bation of my burning them, which Coleman says he dis- 
believes ; but I pay no attention to him. 

light a candle, nor unrake fire; near being tardy." Lexicographers 
appear not to have noted this usage. 



RELATIONS AND RIVALRIES 91 

[March] 13, Monday. . . . G. Woodruff [Clio 
graduate of 1784] & [William Maxwell] Brown [1786, 
Clio] come, Woodruff for the first time; whom I was 
very glad to see. We chat very agreeably for a long 
time — Societies, &c., particularly of the letter this 
evening sent to the Whigs, how it will surprise and vex 
them, &;c. ; of the Characteristicks — late and former 
ones, several of which he mentions, &c. 

[March] 14, Tuesday. Attention of the members 
of our Society altogether taken up with the last letter 
to the Whigs ; think we can discover from their coun- 
tenances that they are mortified. Walk over to I. Clark- 
son [no record] to speak of Lexiphanes & talk of the 
affair. He is for letting it drop as soon as possible & 
having nothing more to do with them. 

A day or two after this the Clios "found a Whig's 
address — a Moderator's, on entering the chair." It 
was "laughable indeed — spelt shockingly & poorly 
written." It gave the Clios vast amusement and was 
made the basis by them for endless gibing of the Whigs. 
So, for some time there was a merry war of words when- 
ever Whig and Clio came together. 

The members of each Society kept much to themselves 
in all their activities and associations, and intimate 
friendships were long of rare occurrence between indi- 
vidual Whigs and Clios. For many years they even sat 
on opposites sides of the gallery in the church at the 
Sunday services. And yet they could not, of course, 
help being thrown much together. The writer of the 
"Journal at Nassau Hall" frequently mentions visits 



92 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

from Whigs at his room and speaks of calling himself 
on Whigs and taking long walks with them. March 
18, 1786, he writes : '*Go to Brown's Room and hear 
Bob Hughes [1787] play his violin, the Room full as 
usual — Whigs and Clios promiscuously." And this at 
the very time when the Societies were officially writing 
each other stinging letters. 

Still, the general attitude of aloofness persisted, and 
well past the middle of the last century. This is made 
certain by an interesting manuscript volume in the 
University Library, entitled "College as it is," written 
by Christian Henry Scharff and James Buchanan 
Henry, both of the class of 1853, and both members of 
the Cliosophic Society. The volume describes with 
intimate detail and circumstance every phase of student 
life at the period of its authorship. It declares : 

"The two Societies exert much influence upon the 
daily intercourse of the students. A marked boundary 
line has been drawn, as it were, between Whigs and 
Clios which, with a few changes, perhaps, will continue 
to exist forever. When the students used to board at 
the College refectory, the members of each Society oc- 
cupied tables by them.selves, which were called Whig 
and Clio tables. In town the same thing takes place 
still; Whigs board at one place and Clios at another. 
Members of different Societies never room together, and 
there are even two entries in the College buildings, which 



RELATIONS AND RIVALRIES 93 

are occupied solely by members of one Society. Since 
many years the Clios have had possession of the rooms 
of the second entry of North, while the Whigs have 
reigned supreme in the rooms of the second entry of 
East. At one time, to be sure, a Whig attempted to 
hold property in the Clio domains, but in a short time 
his room was made too hot for him, and he was obliged 
to seek refuge in a speedy flight. 

"In appointing committees, care is had to appoint 
if possible, an equal number of members from each So- 
ciety, and in the formation of whist parties Whigs club 
with Whigs and Clios with Clios. In ordinary circum- 
stances this distinction between the two Societies does 
not extend farther. Whigs and Clios visit each other in 
their rooms, walk together, and sit next to each other in 
class. It even happens not unfrequently that intimate 
friends belong to different Halls." 

During the early period of the Societies' experience 
the liveliest competition for new members obtained, and 
there was nothing to prevent a young man that for any 
reason had severed his connection with one Society from 
joining the other. This accounts for the fact that some 
names during this epoch appear in the general cata- 
logues of both Societies. In March, 1798, eight or ten 
former Whigs were taken into Clio at the same time. 
Why they had left Whig Hall is not told us, but the in- 
subordinate conduct of some of them soon in Clio justi- 



94 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

fies the surmise that their leaving may not have been 
altogether voluntary. Indeed, it presently became 
necessary, for the sake of the peace and welfare of the 
Society, to ^'separate" several of these young gentlemen 
from membership. A letter from the Hall to the Hon. 
Jonathan Dayton, who had interceded in behalf of the 
readmission of these young men, throws vivid light on 
the situation. These men, it says, "accustomed to live 
under different laws from ours were discontented, and 
wished and exerted themselves to introduce the most 
pernicious innovations, and even to subvert the consti- 
tution held sacred through the successive changes of 
membership since the first institution of the Cliosophic 
Society. Thus was that harmony and good fellowship 
which had happily existed since the eldest of us had the 
honour to be members unfortunately dissolved, and thus 
were the pacific and worthy Cliosophians exposed to the 
repeated insults and malignant attacks of those per- 
sons." Moreover, their "conduct has been such since 
they left our Society, that it would render their read- 
mission highly improper and dishonourable. ... In 
short their conduct has been such that they will never 
be received even by the American Whig Society." 

It was not long after this episode when both Halls 
became convinced that the easy transfer of allegiance 
from one Hall to the other v/as not to the advantage of 
either. This conviction found expression in Clio on 



RELATIONS AND RIVALRIES 95 

February 6, 1799, when it was "resolved that it be the 
opinion of the Society that it would be beneficial to 
enter into an agreement with the American Whig So- 
ciety to prohibit the unlimited emigration of members 
from one Society to the other." Whereupon a com- 
mittee of three was appointed to invite a conference with 
a similar committee from Whig Hall; and a few days 
later it was empowered "to enter into solemn agreement 
with the Whigs entirely to prohibit emigration from one 
Society to the other." That the Hall was by no means 
unanimous in granting this authority, however, is shown 
by the fact that the vote on the question was 13 to 11. 
As a result of the deliberations of the two committees 
plenipotentiary, the following treaty was adopted : 

The American Whig and Cliosophic Societies of the 
College of New Jersey, having taken into consideration 
their mutual relations, have appointed Thomas Miller, 
John Forsyth, and Henry Wisner on the part of one, 
and Isaac Meason, Frederic Nash, and John vanDyke 
on the part of the other, to enter into an agreement on 
the subject of the following articles, viz.: 

Article 1st. The American Whig and Cliosophic So- 
cieties do pledge themselves to each other not to admit 
any person dismissed from, or who shall have been con- 
nected with, the one into the other, after the present 
time. 

Article 2nd. The above-mentioned Societies, wishing 
to prevent discontent among their respective members, 
and deeming it necessary thereto that every person be- 
fore he enters either Institution, should be acquainted 
with the character and members of both, do farther 



96 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

agree that no student shall be proposed to either body, 
within less than four weeks after he has become a reg- 
ular member of College. 

Article 3d. As the articles above are wholly inde- 
pendent of each other, the contracting parties also agree 
that the violation of one of them by either Society shall 
not in any degree impair the obligation to observe the 
other. 

Thomas Miller Isaac Meason 

John Forsyth Frederic Nash 

Henry G. Wisner John vanDyke 

Committee on the Committee on the 

part of the Ameri- part of the Clio- 

can Whig Society. sophic Society. 

Done this seventh day ^-^^^ ^^ ^^^^^ q^^ 
of March, seventeen hun- Conner, Clerk of the A. 
dred and ninety-nine. Whip- Society. 

Signed by order Benj. M. 
Palmer, Clerk of the Clio- 
sophic Society. 

Already, some months before the adoption of the 
treaty, the Societies had acted together in presenting 
a memorial to the Faculty, pointing out "the impro- 
priety of permitting a present set of neuters in College 
to appear in public with badges of distinction." Here 
was evidently the beginning of an effort to establish a 
third society. There had been a similar effort in 1786, 
according to the "Journal at Nassau Hall." But Dr. 
Smith, at that time Vice-President of the College, had 
advised the young men active in it to seek admission into 



RELATIONS AND RIVALRIES 97 

one or the other of the established societies. In the 
next few years more than one attempt in this direction 
was made. Thus, in 1805 we hear of the Adelphic, and in- 
1807 of the Enterpian Society. The two Halls actively 
opposed every movement of this kind, forbidding their 
members to join the new societies or to have anything 
to do with them, and refusing to admit to their own 
membership any student that had been connected there- 
with. These determinations were embodied in a further 
treaty between the Halls, which also provided that its 
terms "should be made to extend to every Society which 
may have been, is, or may be contemplated or established 
in the College of New Jersey." The immediate effect of 
this action was that many men withdrew from the Halls, 
and joined the new societies, and for a time the Halls 
suffered in membership and prestige. But this did not 
last long. In the autumn of 1807 the Halls united in 
rescinding their agreement not to admit to membership 
men that had belonged to the new societies ; and these 
latter soon collapsed. However, Clio immediately de- 
clared its position by requiring all its members to make 
a solemn pledge "never to become members of another 
institution which may be opposed to the interests of the 
Cliosophic Society." This pledge remained a standing 
requirement of the Society, being only modified or more 
exactly defined by changing the last part to read "any 
institution connected with the College which the Clio- 



98 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

sophic Society may deem opposed to its interests." The 
result has been that every effort to establish a real com- 
petitor of the two ancient Societies has come to naught. 
There was even some question for a time with loyal Clio- 
sophians whether in view of their pledge it was proper 
for them to become members of the Philadelphian 
Society. 

Meanwhile, the treaty of March 7, 1799, continued 
in full force and vigor. There has never been, so far 
as the writer can learn, any violation of the principle 
embodied in the first article of the treaty. Once a 
Whig, never a Clio ; once a Clio, never a Whig, has been 
the unvarying rule. This has extended also to honor- 
ary members. In case a man was elected to honorary 
membership by both Societies it was expected that he 
should accept the election of which he first received 
notification. In some instances there has been a keen 
race between letters or telegrams of notification. But it 
was agreed between the Halls that "priority of election 
should not be considered as giving either Society a 
superior claim upon the individual elected but priority 
of acceptance should." 

There was a lively and prolonged controversy between 
the Halls over Dr. McCosh, and each Hall was able 
to present a plausible case for its "superior claim" to 
his allegiance. The dispute was finally referred to an 
arbitrator who decided in favor of Whig — much to the 



RELATIONS AND RIVALRIES 99 

vexation of Clio. At the banquet in connection with the 
celebration of the centennial anniversary of Whig Hall, 
June 29, 1869, Dr. McCosh, in responding to the toast, 
"Alma Mater," referred to the controversy in the fol- 
lowing happy strain : "There has been much said today 
about the benefits of knowledge; and I have certainly, 
in my own experience, found the disadvantage of igno- 
rance. I really did not know, what I ought to have 
known, that there might be any inconsistency in joining 
myself to both of the two Societies, the Whig and the 
Clio, and with the tantalizing view of each that was 
placed before me, I desired to become a member of 
both ; and I was therefore greatly mortified when I found 
that I was to make my choice between them. ... I 
felt very badly because I could not join both Socie- 
ties. ... It was decided at last that I should become 
a Whig . . . and I am ready to do everything I can for 
it [Whig Hall] except one. ... I have such a grate- 
ful remembrance of the many kindnesses shown me by 
the members of the Clio Society, that if ever you fight the 
Clios you must not expect me to help you." 

It is evident in the midcentury, at times, that the 
intense political feeling of the day penetrated the Hall 
and had its influence in the election of new members, for 
April 25, 1856, it was voted that objections based on 
politics or sectional feeling to candidates for admission 
as honorary or active members should not be allowed 
unless sustained by a two-thirds vote. 



100 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

But almost from the start there were complaints of 
the violation of the second article of the treaty. The 
first complaint was made by Clio in December, 1799. 
Its basis was more technical than real. The Whig ac- 
knowledgment recites : "Whereas Messrs. Gambol and 
Watkins have been proposed to our Society about twelve 
hours sooner than the time specified by the second article 
of the late treaty, we promptly acknowledge our infrac- 
tion of the said article, and are determined to adhere 
strictly to its performance in future." Think of the 
enormity of those twelve hours ! Clio, we are glad 
to say, rose to the occasion and very handsomely, 
though with exceeding brevity, responded: "Your 
prompt acknowledgment of the infraction of the treaty 
we accept." And so self-respect was preserved, and the 
treaty was saved. 

But the excessive zeal of eager campaigners for new 
members was hard to curb, and in the years that fol- 
lowed there passed from one Hall to the other innu- 
merable accusations of more or less serious infractions 
of this second article of the treaty. These accusations 
led to much correspondence, through which the dignity 
of the Societies was vindicated and the validity of the 
mutual compact was asserted and maintained. This 
went on until the autumn of 1824, when for a time amica- 
ble relations between the Halls were suspended. The 
annual report of 1825 describes the incident in language 



RELATIONS AND RIVALRIES 101 

which the writer would not venture to paraphrase: 
"Soon after the commencement of the last winter ses- 
sion, a member of college, previous to his admission into 
our Society, entered — inadvertently, as he declared, — 
into the Hall of our rival Society, which together with 
his initiation into our Hall, severed every bond of union 
heretofore existing between the two Societies and threat- 
ened the peace of the institution with which these So- 
cieties stand connected. A few weeks after the 
initiation of this person, the Society was called upon to 
perform the painful duty of suspending him from their 
Hall for ungentlemanly conduct. The committee re- 
joice that they are enabled to state that the Societies 
are now on usual terms of intimacy and feeling. That 
dark and lowering cloud which threatened to disgorge its 
contents upon our devoted heads has passed by and been 
followed by a peaceful calm." Ah, the young men of 
that day knew how to express themselves ! 

But the "peaceful calm" was not of long duration. 
In the next two or three years there were repeated 
charges that the treaty was being violated, and finally 
in midwinter of 1.828-29 the treaty was denounced and 
annulled. The annual report of 1829 tells the story of 
this episode in prolix but interesting detail. After ex- 
patiating on the importance of the second article of the 
treaty and the necessity of absolute adherence to its 
precise terms, the report continues: 



102 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

"Now, we are bound in justice to our Society and in 
the spirit of strict impartiality to state that the mem- 
bers of the opposite Society have not regarded this 
article with the veneration it deserves. . . . Notwith- 
standing the necessity of preserving strictly inviolate 
so important an article of the treaty, they, at the com- 
mencement of last winter's session, in direct opposition 
to the above mentioned article, admitted into their So- 
ciety a student who had been a member of College only 
three weeks. This act was the more flagrant and the 
more unjustifiable as it was committed openly and with 
deliberate premeditation. So much so that they even 
avowed previously to our members their intention of 
so doing; and moreover privately enquired as to the 
degree of criminality we should attach to the commission 
of it. The gentleman referred to was nevertheless ad- 
mitted, and the only course left us was to remonstrate as 
usual and request an explanation; which we did in a 
firm yet respectful manner through a committee ap- 
pointed for that purpose. So far was this, however, 
from obtaining the necessary apology, that in order to 
avoid making any concessions, they took this opportu- 
nity to cavil and object to our letter as though it was 
not sufficiently humble to attract their notice. It was 
accordingly enclosed and returned to us, stating simply 
that they did not consider themselves bound to reply to 
such a communication. 



RELATIONS AND RIVALRIES 103 

"The Cliosophic Society then directed their com- 
mittee to inform the American Whig Society that in 
consequence of the violation of the second article of the 
treaty and their refusal to make any apology or ex- 
planation of the same, the Cliosophic Society could no 
longer acknowledge any obligation to regard the article 
thus violated, and that it was thenceforth null and 
void. We then received a letter from them, written 
in no very conciliatory tone, wishing to be informed of 
'the train of reasoning by which we arrived at so logical 
a conclusion,' — viz. our right to annul the article they 
had so openly violated and for which they would make 
no reparation, — and ending with a threat that if we 
did annul that article they would no longer be bound 
by any of the treaty, and that thenceforth they would 
act as though no treaty existed. We of course proceeded 
with regard to this article as we had informed them and 
afterwards admitted our members accordingly. They 
then determined to act under no restraint so far as re- 
garded the compact, which they were sacredly pledged to 
observe, and w'hile our Society was in session at one of 
its regular meetings, rushed up into the Hall in the most 
disorderly and tumultuous manner and after much con- 
fusion and disturbance retired as they came. [The two 
Halls, it is to be remembered, occupied at that time 
adjoining rooms on the top floor of what is now Stanhope 
Hall. The meetings were on different evenings, and an 



104 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

article of the inter-hall treaty forbade the members of 
one Society to enter their Hall when the other Society 
was in session.] 

"In reply to their last letter our committee by direc- 
tion of Society referred them to our last communication 
for the reason of our conduct and also informed them 
that hereafter no communication from the American 
Whig Society which did not propose a suitable repara- 
tion for the recent violation of the treaty would receive 
any notice from the Cliosophic Society. In conformity 
with the rest of their conduct this letter was found the 
next morning nailed to one of the doors of the college 
building. 

"Thus ended all communication between the two ; and 
as the American Whig Society had rejected the treaty, 
we shortly after annulled it by the unanimous consent 
of ours. It will be seen from the general statement 
where the aggression commenced and how it was con- 
tinued. The members of the Cliosophic Society have 
throughout acted with calmness and deliberation, nor 
was any step taken by the Society till its consequences 
were duly weighed and its propriety fully established. 
The advice and opinions of our graduate members had 
their weight in all these proceedings, and when they 
could be obtained were gladly received." 

Any one with the slighest apprehension of the 
undergraduate temper can appreciate the tremendous 



RELATIONS AND RIVALRIES 105 

seriousness of the situation. So, it was a very pretty 
quarrel as it stood, and for a time there was much 
bitterness of spirit and many an act of mutual annoy- 
ance. Wiser counsels soon prevailed, however, and 
though for many years there was no revival of the treaty, 
ill will gave way to better feelings, and the two So- 
cieties conducted themselves with a reasonable regard 
for each other's rights and susceptibilities. The annual 
report of 1830, speaking of the rupture of relations, 
declares : "Not the least inconvenience on our part has 
been experienced. Unclogged by articles of agreement, 
which the principles of honor here inculcated taught us 
to observe and which our rival without cause trampled 
under foot, our course has been steered independently 
of any communication with them." 

Meanwhile, with no restriction on the times and sea- 
sons for receiving new members existing, there was con- 
stantly increasing vigor and variety in the methods 
employed by both Societies to win adherents. Com- 
mittees were appointed to lay siege to the new students 
as soon as they appeared on the campus ; and these were 
courted and feted and had life made a pleasant burden 
to them until they were pledged to one Hall or the other. 
But once in the Hall of their choice they became aware 
that "those civilities and attentions," as the annual 
report of 1831 regretfully puts it, "arose from other 
motives than genuine politeness, esteem, or friendship." 



106 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

They learned that, after all, they were only freshmen, 
and that there were sophomores who had ideas and de- 
signs for their discipline and improvement which delayed 
application had only made more definite and more 
searching. 

This condition of unregulated competition endured for 
nearly fifteen years — with less friction and animosity 
between the Halls, however, than might have been ex- 
pected. Then, in 1844, a new treaty was adopted, much 
the same as the old, only that the time of residence in 
College before which a student could be admitted to mem- 
bership was made two weeks instead of four. Hardly a 
year and a half passed before a flagrant violation of the 
treaty by Whig Hall occurred, and again relations were 
severed and unrestricted rivalry was resumed. 

The apologetic account of this episode given by 
Professor Cameron (who was a student at the time), in 
his "History of the American Whig Society," is worth 
quoting: "Through inadvertence the Whigs initiated 
two members before they had been connected with the 
College two weeks, as was required by the treaty. The 
Clios declared the treaty null and void, and would not 
receive our explanation. The return of a letter, in what 
was considered an improper manner, in the course of an 
excited correspondence, induced the Wliigs to post the 
Clios upon the walls of the College. The paper was re- 
moved by the authorities of the College, and the Clios 



RELATIONS AND RIVALRIES 107 

ceased to have any social relations with the Whigs. The 
dearest friends were separated, and I have never wit- 
nessed so much excitement or such a display of 
bitter feeling since I have been connected with the insti- 
tution. Daily meetings were held by the Societies, at 
which members of the Faculty and old graduates were 
present attempting to restore kindly feelings. The 
storm fortunately passed without any personal out- 
breaks ; but the only solution of the difficulty consisted in 
the mutual withdrawal of the correspondence and the 
abolition of the treaty. It was not until the commence- 
ment of my class in 1847 that a general reconciliation 
occurred and harmony was restored." 

In "College as it is," from which quotation has al- 
ready been made, we have a vivid description of the 
assiduities of the two Halls at the beginning of the 
college year during this period to obtain new recruits. 
Somewhat condensed this reads : 

"The reception with which a newy meets here at 
Princeton differs widely from that which he experiences 
at some of the European colleges. There the first two 
weeks of his collegiate life are always insupportable. At 
Princeton, on the contrary, he is treated politely by all ; 
every one seems happy to make his acquaintance, and in 
a few hours after his arrival at College, he feels as if 
he were among old friends. The freshman cannot 
escape torment altogether; the time of his suffering is 



108 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

only put off. There are two Societies at Princeton, the 
American Whig and the Oliosophic. All their proceed- 
ings are covered with an impenetrable veil of secrecy. 
As they are rivals each one endeavors to secure a supe- 
riority in the number of members. Hence it is that 
every one is kind to the newy, visits him in his room, 
treats him to creams, and thus tries to get him to join 
that Society to which he himself belongs. Some of the 
senior members of each Society are always on the alert 
to treat any freshman who comes within their reach, 
and if this individual is cute enough to leave them in 
doubt for some time as to which of the Halls he in- 
tends to enter, he can have a very fine time. The sight 
of one member of each Society 'hoaxing' a freshman 
for their respective Halls, reminds one of the scenes 
between steamboat runners of opposition boats. 

"In the conversations between members of the Halls 
and newies, much is said about a certain goat which is 
kept by each Society for the sole purpose of .etting the 
newies ride in triumph through the Halls. Who knows 
but what these goats may be descendants from that 
celebrated individual into which Mnemosyne, the mother 
of the muses, was transformed in ancient times by 
Jupiter, the great father and king of the gods. Every 
one sets forth his own goat as a strong and gentle crea- 
ture who will carry a newy through all the mysteries of 
the Hall with the greatest ease. The goat of the rival 



RELATIONS AND RIVALRIES 109 

Society butts the freshman and when mounted gallops 
away in furious manner, leaving the rider at his destina- 
tion more dead than alive. The freshman therefore as- 
sures himself first of all which of the two animals is in 
fact the most gentle. On the second Friday night after 
the commencement of the session you may see a number 
of young men walking arm in arm to each of the two 
Halls. These are the newies accompanied by their guides. 
They arrive at the door; the freshmen prepare them- 
selves for the ride and well they may do so, for as the 
door opens you may see part of the form of a white 
goat. Look how the newies tremble; they are now 
going to — ^but the door closes and the outsiders are thus 
left in perfect ignorance as to the particulars of the 
ride." 

In the years that followed, at various times, other 
treaties regulating campaigning, etc., to much the same 
effect as the early compacts, were entered into between 
the Halls. These were enforced for longer or shorter 
periods and then through infractions went the way of 
their predecessors. Finally, in May 1891, an elaborate 
treaty, defining in detail the limits and methods of cam- 
paigning and providing severe penalties for violation of 
its restrictions, was negotiated and ratified by the two 
Halls. This was somewhat revised and amplified ten 
years later, when, in addition to the signatures of the 
committees of the two Halls, it was attested on behalf 



110 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

of the graduate members by Professor Woodrow Wilson 
for the Whigs and by Professor Theodore W. Hunt for 
the Clios. 

The Halls agreed to refrain from all campaigning 
except such as the treaty provided for. This excluded 
"the deliberate attempt upon the part of any member at 
any time whatsoever to influence directly or indirectly 
any student or prospective student in the choice of 
Society." It provided for the appointment by each 
Hall every year of a committee of ten to present to 
new students "the claims of hall membership" and to 
urge its advisability, but the two committees were to act 
in harmony, and no member of either was to urge a 
student to enter Hall except in the presence of a member 
of the committee of the other Hall. It provided further 
for the annual publication, at the joint expense of the 
Halls, of a small pamphlet concisely stating the aims 
of the Societies, explaining the method of applying for 
membership, and giving a brief summary of the history 
of each Hall. The pamphlet would say : 

"Identification with one Hall or the other is advised 
by the Faculty, who are themselves members. The pur- 
pose of the Societies is the promotion of intellectual cul- 
ture by literary exercise. One obtains in them a train- 
ing not found in the curriculum. . . . Therefore, apart 
from personal prejudice toward institutions to which 
we belong, we earnestly advise all new students seeking 



RELATIONS AND RIVALRIES 111 

for intellectual culture and improvement to join one or 
other of the Societies for the training afforded, for the 
library and reading room advantages, and for the friend- 
ship and hospitality found within their walls." 

This system continued in force, giving reasonable 
satisfaction, until a few years ago when the publication 
of the pamphlet was abandoned and the present method 
of presenting the claims of the Halls to the entering 
class came into use. Individual solicitation remains 
under ban. Campaign committees are still appointed 
which act in harmony, and shortly before the October 
initiation a meeting of the freshman class is held at 
which the virtues and advantages of the two Halls are set 
forth by two members of the Faculty, one a Whig and 
the other a Clio. 

The competitive spirit between the Halls has not en- 
tirely disappeared, but little is left of the ancient inten- 
sity of friction and rivalry. Perhaps a little more of 
the old eagerness of emulation would be beneficial to 
both Halls. The late James W. Alexander ('60), in 
his interesting "Princeton Old and New," published in 
1898, while admitting that the practice of "hoaxing" 
"may have been carried to an extreme, for the com- 
mittees [in the times when no treaty existed] had the 
habit of approaching students before they came to Prince- 
ton, waylaying them at the station and pursuing them 
with every sort of suasion short of physical force," still 



112 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

is of opinion that "the competition had its meritorious 
side." For, he contends, "it left no indifferent men in 
College." He declares further: "It cannot be said, 
without qualification, that the effect [of the present 
system] is good. For the first time in the history of 
these venerable institutions there exists a considerable 
body of students who belong to neither Society, and 
there are many who would hail enthusiastically the abro- 
gation of the treaty, and a return to the traditional 
habit, which would doubtless be favorably toned by the 
experiences of recent years." 

The first Greek letter fraternity to appear at Prince- 
ton was Beta Theta Pi which was established in 1843, 
nearly twenty years after the Greeks had begun their 
conquest of other colleges. It endured only three years. 
Delta Kappa Episilon came in 1845. In the early fifties 
seven other fraternities found footing. Even their meet- 
ing places were kept secret, declares "College as it is," 
but acting together they were able, according to the 
same authority, to control class elections. The college 
authorities were hostile to them from the start. Senti- 
ment in Clio was for a time divided. This is made mani- 
fest by the fact that June 22, 1854, the Society adopted 
the following minute for presentation to the Trustees : 

Whereas we have been informed by the President of 
the College of New Jersey that it is a matter of general 
belief that secret associations have been and are inju- 
rious to the interests of the Cliosophic Society, we the 



RELATIONS AND RIVALRIES 113 

members of the Cliosophic Society do in general assem- 
bly submit the following resolutions to the Trustees of 
the College, requesting that they will give them a candid 
and careful consideration: 

Be it resolved (1) that the secret associations estab- 
lished in College have not tended to wean the members 
from the interests of the Cliosophic Society; but such 
members have performed with zeal and alacrity the 
various duties devolving upon them and have striven 
hand and heart with all others to promote the prosper- 
ity and guard the best interests of the Society. 

(2) That the friendly intercourse now existing be- 
tween the two literary Societies is in a great measure 
dependent upon the establishment of secret associations 
in College ; that it is a matter of fact that prior to such 
associations a feeling of animosity existed between the 
two Halls most injurious to the interests of the College 
and detrimental to the happiness of the student ; that the 
cessation of such hostility is due to the secret associa- 
tions which while they excite a generous rivalry between 
the two literary Societies bind the members of either in 
firmest bonds of amity and produce a feeling of good-will 
that goes far to promote the interests of the College. 

(3) That the existence of secret associations is not 
necessarily productive of cliques in the Cliosophic So- 
ciety, and even were such cliques to be formed that they 
oppose the formation of cliques far more bitter in their 
nature and more dangerous in their effects. That the 
secret associations binding by the closest ties of friend- 
ship unite North and South, East and West, in firmest 
bonds of union ; that they thus destroy those state and 
sectional [prejudices] which would embitter the course 
of the student and impede the progress of the Hall. 
That the secret associations thus enable the stranger 
to meet with a hearty welcome and to make firm friends 



114 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

■beyond the narrow limits of his own State or section. 
That they thus guard against that bitter sectional 
feeling which has crept into some of the institutions of 
our country, enabling the student to regard this literary 
Society and thus promote his happiness and the welfare 
of the Hall and the College. 

(4) That those members of the Cliosophic Society 
who are deserving of her highest honors have not found 
secret associations detrimental to their interests. 

The Trustees, we may well believe, were not greatly 
impressed with the resolutions, for their opposition did 
not relax. And even if "the existence of secret associa- 
tions was not necessarily productive of cliques" in the 
Hall, it soon became apparent that the Greeks did com- 
bine to control hall politics and so became a subtle 
disturbing element. Elections under their influence 
were fiercely contested, "becoming," as a contemporary 
report declares, "to many of as much importance as any 
Presidential election is to ofSce-seeking politicians." 
Evil conditions finally reached a climax in scenes of wild 
disorder at the election of Junior Orators in March 
1857. The annual report for that year tells the story: 
"The unauthorized secret societies, after intense exer- 
tion and polling their full vote, were unable to carry 
the election of one of their candidates. The defeated 
party (for parties we must acknowledge were formed) 
was greatly disappointed in the result of the election, so 
that many of its members without the least compunc- 
tion of conscience wilfully made known to members of the 



RELATIONS AND RIVALRIES 115 

American Whig Society many, yea, nearly all the inter- 
nal arrangements of the Hall. They revealed the names 
of our officers and candidates for Junior Orator, with 
the number of votes which each received, and even the 
fictitious names of every active member of Society. 
Not contented with this, they drew up a series of resolu- 
tions which they read at a called meeting of Society 
pledging themselves never to enter the Hall again, and 
desiring that they might no longer be considered mem- 
bers of Society. Having read the resolutions, they gave 
three cheers, stamped loudly, and in a body [twenty- 
nine of them] left the Hall." 

It is no wonder that the college authorities which, 
"knowing the importance and advantages of the Ameri- 
can Whig and Cliosophic Societies and observing the 
workings of the secret cliques, had already adopted reso- 
lutions requiring each student to pledge himself not to 
join any other secret society while a member of Col- 
lege," now adopted more stringent measures to suppress 
the Greeks. As a result most of the fraternities were 
disbanded in 1857 or soon after. Two, however, per- 
sisted, in spite of all efforts to dislodge them, and in 
defiance of the pledge given by the students at matricu- 
lation, for twenty years longer; and in the sixties two 
others were established and maintained a precarious 
existence for a few years. All these were under ban and 
their members had to be most careful to hide their 



116 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

membership and to keep their surreptitious meeting 
places secret. The two Halls were as hostile to them 
as were the authorities. In 1872 they made a treaty 
agreeing mutually to exact a most solemn pledge of 
members not to join any other secret society in College 
and promising to assist each other in detecting and 
punishing any man that violated his pledge. Delta Phi 
held out longest of all, but finally gave up the ghost in 
1877, and the long contest was ended. At least, that is 
the official record. But there is reason to believe that the 
chapter kept up a sort of shadowy post mortem exist- 
ence for fifteen years or so longer. A Clio who grad- 
uated in the early nineties recalls that he was surprised 
and indignant at being invited to become a member. 

First and last, from 1843 to 1877, ten different 
Greek letter fraternities had chapters at Princeton — 
eight of them in the fifties. All told, if we may rely 
on the figures given by William Raimond Baird in his 
"Manual of American College Fraternities," they en- 
rolled a total of only four hundred and fourteen mem- 
bers. But some three-fourths of the membership be- 
longed to the critical years of the fifties ; and, as 
was said at the beginning of this chapter, there is 
no reasonable doubt, if the fraternities had been allowed 
to flourish at Princeton as they did at the other colleges 
of the country, that Whig and Clio would long ago 
have become a memory. 



CHAPTER V 

Public Competitions and Honors 

The history of one Hall is in many respects the his- 
tory of both Halls. It is, indeed, difficult to think of one 
without the other. Whatever change or improvement 
one made was pretty sure very soon to be adopted by 
the other, if not in precise form at least in substance. 
In their dealings with the college authorities they acted 
in unison, making known their wishes or presenting their 
protests through joint committees ; for whatever affected 
the welfare or prospects of one Hall was felt to be of 
equal consequence to the other. So, for much more than 
a century all extra-curriculum activities of the student 
body were related more or less closely to the Halls. 
Officers and committees of the various classes were com- 
posed as nearly as possible of equal numbers of Whigs 
and Clios ; so, too, committees representing the general 
student body, boards of editors of college publications, 
and the like. 

In later years, with the large increase of so great a 

variety of extra-curriculum activities, the Halls have 

lost their dominating position and influence. They still 

enlist the active support of a larger proportion of the 

117 



118 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

students than any other single interest; but they no 
longer control college life and college politics as they 
used to do, and their activities no longer excite the 
rivalry and the acclaim that they used to command. 
Old graduates who remember how great a part the 
Halls played in their student days may lament their 
decline, if not in real influence on those that make use of 
the opportunities and privileges they offer, at least in 
their relative importance ; but such lamentation is vain. 
"Other times, other customs" holds true in the student 
world as elsewhere, and institutions and exercises that 
admirably serve the needs of one generation may make 
slight appeal to the generations that follow. If the 
Halls are to survive and to continue to be a strong and 
vital influence in university life, — and after their long 
and splendid history of usefulness it will be deplorable 
if they do not, — they must not cling too insistently to 
traditional methods, but must constantly adapt their 
activities to modern student requirements. 

The first appearance in public of representatives of 
the two Halls, as such, was on July 4, 1783. Announce- 
ment of this was made by an advertisement in the New 
Jersey Gazette, which read: 

Princeton, June 20, 1783. 

The anniversary of the independence of America 

[thus early was America used as synonymous with 

United States^ will be celebrated in the College by two 

orations delivered by young gentlemen appointed for 



COMPETITIONS AND HONORS 119 

that purpose by the two Literary Societies established 
in the Institution, in which they propose not only to 
pay the tribute that is due to their country from youth 
engaged in the pursuits of science, but to emulate each 
other in the opinion of a polite assembly for the honour 
of their respective Societies. 

One may feel pretty confident that this dignified and 
carefully phrased sentence did not emanate "from youth 
engaged in the pursuits of science." It must have been 
framed by some member of the Faculty; not unlikely 
by Professor (afterward President) Samuel S. Smith, 
who a few days later wrote a letter to the President 
of Congress, Dr. Elias Boudinot (a trustee of the Col- 
lege), offering Congress the use of the Prayer Hall and 
the Library "as places in which to hold their sessions 
or for any other purpose," in which he had this sono- 
rous period : "And if, in the common shock of our coun- 
try this institution hath suffered more than other places, 
both by friends & foes ; from its readiness to assist the 
one, while the public was yet poor & unprovided with 
conveniences for its troops ; & from the peculiar & 
marked resentment of the other, as supposing it to be 
a nursery of rebellion, we doubt not but the candour of 
that most honourable body will readily excuse the marks 
of military fury which it still retains." 

Dr. Ashbel Green in his autobiography gives us the 
following account of the celebration: "Not long after 
their meeting [that of Congress] at Princeton, the na- 



120 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

tional Jubilee, the Fourth of July, was to be celebrated ; 
and then occurred the first instance of the Whig and 
Cliosophic Societies appointing each an orator, to rep- 
resent them as speaker before a public audience. I had 
the honour to be the Whig representative, and my Clio- 
sophic competitor was a classmate, by the name of Gil- 
bert T. Snowden [the man whom he had lampooned]. 
It was considered as a point of some importance which 
orator should speak first. This was decided by lot and 
the lot was in my favour. The subject of my oration 
was 'The superiority of a republican government over 
any other form.' Congress made a part of our au- 
dience, and the orators of the day were invited by the 
President of Congress to dine with him and his other 
invited guests at his quarters, which were with his sister, 
then a widow, at her seat at Morven." (Ah, how many 
a famous company Morven has entertained ! Long may 
it still abide, "a haunt of ancient peace" !) 

There remains no record of the theme discussed by 
young Snowden, who later was a tutor in the College 
and then entered the ministry. But it was no doubt 
of an equally patriotic character. Apparently, from this 
year on, the Fourth of July was regularly commemorated 
in similar fashion by the two Halls. The "Journal at 
Nassau Hall," from which quotation was made in the 
preceding chapter, gives us entertaining particulars of 
the celebration in 1786. June 29, the diarist writes: 



COMPETITIONS AND HONORS 121 

"Both Societies held occasional meetings today, when, 
in consequence of Dr. Smith's direction, three persons 
were appointed from each Society to speak on the fourth 
of July after the principal orations were deliv'd. Per- 
sons from ours (Cliosophic), Messrs. James [Hender- 
son] Imlay [1786], Jacob Camp [doubtless of the class 
of 1787; he did not graduate], and Geo. Clarkson 
[1788] ; from the Whig Soc'y, Messrs. Mat[urin] 
Livingston [1786], Horace Stockton [Lucius Horatio 
Stockton, 1787], & Henry Dees [the name appears fre- 
quently in the "Journal," sometimes spelled "Deas" ; he 
was doubtless of 1788, in which class there was also a 
David Deas] ." 

Then, July 4, he tells the story of the day: "How 
are the mighty fallen ! — ^This day for 3 or 4 years past 
had been celebrated with the greatest elegance & festiv- 
ity. Literary as well as many other entertainments ; the 
day entirely devoted to relaxation & pleasure; Profes- 
sors, tutors. Students partaking in common of a most 
elegant dinner previously provided. But this year 
the latter part of the celebration was knocked in the 
head, the Faculty having determined it high treason for 
any student to breakfast, dine, or sup out of the Stew- 
ard's Hally who was anyhow within reach of it. This, 
by the by, the Steward would willingly have dispensed 
with. For it is very currently reported & as generally 
believed that his feelings were much hurt, his conscience 



122 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

much strained, and his purse much impaired by the 
punch, ham, & green peas which (mirabile dictu) were 
had on this mem'ble day. The orations deliv'd in the 
morn'g by S[amuel Finley] Snowden [1786, Clio — he 
had been chosen by the Society as its orator on March 
29] & Ed'd Graham [1786, Whig] were very well 
spoken & in all other respects well conducted; a good 
audience, polite & attentive; the speakers complimented 
by Dr. Smith. In the afternoon, partake with 3 or 4 
students of a nicely elegant repast — fruit, preserves, 
punch. At 5 o'clock, 6 other orations were deliv'd by 
students — 3 from each Society & concluded with two 
very humorous ones (Blunt & Anderson) [Possibly 
Blunt was William Blount, of North Carolina, who was 
admitted to Clio in 1785, but did not graduate. An- 
derson was doubtless William A. Anderson (1789, 
Whig). Here was very likely the beginning of the hu- 
morous speech in Princeton on patriotic occasions, still 
kept up on Washington's Birthday.] which terminated 
the Literary exercises of the day. The day was ushered 
out by the discharge of 13 rounds from a cannon in the 
campus [the historic cannon?] which seemed to defuse 
more gen'l satisfaction than had been felt before." 

The number of orators for the Fourth of July cele- 
bration varied in the early period, but finally it was 
settled that each Hall should regularly appoint four 
speakers, and, some years later, alternately a Reader of 



COMPETITIONS AND HONORS 123 

the Declaration of Independence. The speaking took 
place "in town," but just where we are not informed. 
Probably it was in the open air when the weather was 
propitious ; and people from the village and the vicinage 
joined with the students in the celebration. This patri- 
otic practice came to an end in 1839. The orators were 
selected as usual in 1840. It was Clio's turn to name the 
Reader, and thence the trouble rose. The annual report 
of 1840 tells the story: 

"Although our Society has been characterized by such 
a great degree of harmony and peace within, yet a 
threatening storm gathered without. The long and un- 
interrupted peace, which previously existed between the 
two rival Societies was violently ruptured at the com- 
mencement of this session. . . . Last session one of our 
members obtained through another a leaf from the min- 
utes of the Whig Society [it had blown out accidentally 
from Whig Hall and been picked up by a Clio], contain- 
ing the names and duties of the officers not only, but the 
whole internal government of the Hall. In justice 
to our fellow member we state that his first intention was 
to suppress this document [which, of course, he should 
have done or have returned it to Whig Hall], but on 
account of the solicitations of several friends he con- 
sented to its divulgement. In a short time the whole 
document was in the possession of all. The Whigs natur- 
ally became very much exasperated, and the whole 



124 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

weight of their resentment fell upon our unfortunate 
Brother. 

"The Society afterwards thought proper to elect this 
gentleman Reader of the Declaration of Independence 
on the Fourth of July. He resigned on the ground that 
his election would displease the Whigs; but as the So- 
ciety had elected him on account of his qualifications for 
that office and not for the purpose of insulting our rival, 
they reelected him by an unanimous vote. As soon as this 
became known to the Whig Society, they sent in a com- 
munication addressed in a dictatorial and haughty 
manner, declaring that unless we would withdraw the 
obnoxious person and substitute another in his place, 
they would not join with us in celebrating the day. A 
reply was drawn up in which we stated that it was not 
our intention to insult that body by electing the gentle- 
man, and being conscious of this we could not retract. 
They still persisted in the ground which they had taken, 
and consequently the exercises of the day were unper- 
formed by either, a thing which never occurred before in 
the history of the two Societies. 

"Thus the contest ended, but we apprehend its re- 
newal when the time comes for appointing another 
Reader. Each Society appoints one alternately to rep- 
resent their body. It was our privilege last year, and 
as the gentleman appointed by us was not recognized and 
no Declaration was read, we claim the right of electing 



COMPETITIONS AND HONORS 125 

the next one. They do the same. Now, to which So- 
ciety does that right belong.'"' 

The annual report of the next year continues and 
completes the story: 

"The celebration of the Fourth of July by the So- 
cieties was this year defeated by causes arising out of 
the difficulty of last year. The last person who per- 
formed as Reader was chosen by the American Whig 
Society. There has been no celebration since that time 
and of course according to rotation it was our privilege 
this year to elect a Reader. The Whig Society also 
claimed it; but surely, consistently and honorably, we 
could not allow them to represent us twice successively. 
It would have been at variance with usage and with the 
contract to which both Societies have subscribed. Our 
cause seemed therefore palpable ; there was no room for 
doubt, no chance for error ; and we unanimously deemed 
it to be our duty tO have our stipulated right or to 
secede — to celebrate with the Reader of our choice or 
not to celebrate at all. 

"We well know that it is policy as well as a pleasure 
to exercise courtesy toward our neighbor, that civility in 
intercourse is manly and that forbearance is virtuous; 
and according to these sentiments as far as practicable 
we have acted. The American Whig Society first took 
offense, and we told them none was intended; and yet 
making their own prejudiced opinions the arbiter in a 



126 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

matter which concerned us both, they would deprive us 
of a right as evident as it is reasonable, and which we 
conceived the most refined rules of etiquette and the most 
Christian-like charity would not permit us to yield. 

"It is highly probable ( even should there be no altera^ 
tions in the college sessions) that the Societies will never 
again jointly celebrate the birthday of our country. 
And though we regret that a practice begun more than 
half a century ago in the presence of our American Con- 
gress should be interrupted by a trivial circumstance, 
yet we believe the fault is not of our begetting, the 
blame cannot be attached to us." 

Possibly, the quarrel might have been patched up, dis- 
tressing as it was, in time. But it was not long after this 
(1844) that the change in the college year was made 
which brought the Commencement in June, and so there 
was no longer a possibility of a Fourth of July celebra- 
tion by the students. It must be admitted that the 
Whigs had rather the best of the argument in the con- 
troversy; that, in spite of Clio's protestation and spe- 
cial pleading, the blame for the breaking up of the 
ancient and laudable custom was rather upon her 
shoulders. The Whigs had good cause to resent the 
election of Crane — for that was the name of the 
"brother" who gave publicity to the flying leaf of Whig 
secrets ; and Clio had better have accepted Crane's res- 
ignation and elected another Reader. And the follow- 



COMPETITIONS AND HONORS 127 

ing year it had done better not to have insisted, in view 
of its obstinacy of the year before, on its technical right. 

The Whig resentment toward Crane was deep and 
lasting. Mr. Alexander, in his "Princeton Old and 
New," recounts : "A graduate who was at Princeton 
during this terrible commotion relates that ten or twelve 
years after leaving College he joined the most prominent 
social club in New York, and on entering the reading- 
room one evening whom should he see but C — himself, 
who had become a physician of repute. The graduate 
— full of the old Princeton feeling, which never dies in 
a son of Nassau — was so shocked that it was as much 
as he could do to 'hold himself down' and not to de- 
nounce C — then and there as unfit for the company 
of gentlemen. But sober second thought came to his 
rescue, and he contented himself with avoiding his fel- 
low clubman." 

After the abandonment of the public celebration, 
Clio continued its own particular observance of the na- 
tional holiday as long as the 4th of July remained 
within the college year ; and then, when the change in the 
college year was made, the patriotic celebration was 
transferred to Washington's birthday. This praise- 
worthy practice was continued for many years, four or- 
ators, sometimes more, being chosen to commemorate the 
character and achievements of the Father of his Coun- 
try, to express the patriotic sentiments of the Society, 



128 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

and to discuss any timely question of large social or 
political interest. What eloquence, what rhetoric, 
what wealth of suggestions for all manner of reforms, 
won applause from hands and voices, now long silent, 
in those old Hall celebrations ! 

And just here we must not fail to recall that probably 
one of the earliest celebrations of Washington's birth- 
day ever held was conducted by the Cliosophic Society. 
This was in 1794 while Washington was finishing the 
first year of his second term as President, and nearly 
six years before his death. The minutes record: "An 
oration was delivered by Bro. Gama, who had been 
previously chosen for that purpose, to the great satis- 
faction of all present." "Bro. Gama" was Henry 
Kollock (1794), afterwards for some years in the 
Princeton Faculty and widely known as an eloquent 
preacher. 

The public competition between the Halls of longest 
duration is what has long been known as the Junior 
Orator Contest. Just when this was instituted the 
writer has been unable definitely to ascertain. In the 
Clio minutes of February 27, 1874, it is said, on what 
authority does not appear, to have been begun in 1783 ; 
but this is probably too early a date. There is record 
that at the Commencement of 1784 there was a competi- 
tion in oratory between the two Societies, each being 
represented by a single orator chosen from the senior 



COMPETITIONS AND HONORS 129 

class. It is possible that the idea of such a contest as 
between the Halls at commencement time was suggested 
by the success of the Fourth of July speaking. Or it 
may simply have superseded, by a sort of natural evolu- 
tion, an earlier custom which had been instituted by 
President Witherspoon. This was a contest in oratory, 
open to all undergraduates, held usually on the day pre- 
ceding the annual Commencement. The first contest of 
this kind was held in 1771, and then regularly for sev- 
eral years. 

Whatever its origin, the inter-hall contest soon be- 
came firmly established in the interest and esteem of 
the students ; probably before 1790. Mr. John R. Wil- 
liams, in his book, "Academic Honors in Princeton Uni- 
versity", on giving the names of the competitors from 
the two Societies in 1805, says, to be sure : "This is an 
early and isolated instance of competition between the 
two Societies by four representatives from each, on the 
evening preceding commencement day. This custom 
was not regularly instituted until several years later, 
when it became known as the 'Junior Commencement,' 
the Junior orations of the present day." But this 
is clearly erroneous. It is certain, at any rate, that 
there was speaking "the night before Commencement" 
in 1786. There are numerous references to preparations 
therefor in the "Journal at Nassau Hall." Under 
date of August 16, 1786, the diarist writes of a dis- 



130 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

cussion he had had that day with a fellow Clio "of the 
late measures of the Whigs in appointing persons to 
speak the night before Commencement." It appears, 
too, that the diarist himself was preparing to be one 
of the speakers on that occasion, — unfortunately, the 
Journal stops abruptly a few days before Commence- 
ment, — and that he was to use an oration written for 
him by Samuel Bayard [Clio, 1784], possibly a kins- 
man, as he speaks in one place of a visit from "Uncle 
Bayard." On receiving the oration, "which in general 
pleased me very much," he had carefully transcribed it 
and submitted it to Dr. Smith, by whom it was "pretty 
well curtailed, and robbed, I thought, of some of its 
greatest beauties." — The cruel doctor! After the 
speaking that night, also, the diarist and a fellow class- 
mate and Cliosophian, Nathaniel Higginson, were pre- 
paring to surprise the audience with a presentation of 
the dialogue "Doctors Neverout and Doughty." The 
account of this speaking published in the Pennsylvania 
Journal (October 11, 1786, fifteen days after it oc- 
curred!) says twelve young men took part and it names 
eleven. It does not mention the dialogue. There was 
"a very numerous and respectable audience." 

Moreover, the Clio minutes from 1792 (the earliest we 
have) regularly report each year the election of orators 
for the evening before Commencement; and quite as 
regularly report each year an "occasional meeting" 



COMPETITIONS AND HONORS 131 

held a few nights before Commencement for the purpose 
of hearing the orations that were to be spoken in the 
competition. For some years, however, the number of 
orators was not limited to four, nor was the choice 
confined to the junior class; sophomores being 
likewise eligible. In 1793 seven orators were ap- 
pointed ; but there were no commencement exercises that 
year owing to the prevalence of yellow fever in Phil- 
adelphia. In 1794 six men spoke, all juniors except 
one. Not long after this the number was fixed at four. 

In 1808 the Whigs for some reason refused to enter 
the contest. In consequence of this, a few days before 
Commencement, an "occasional meeting" of Clio was 
called and four additional orators were chosen ; so that all 
eight speakers "on the evening before Commencement" 
that year were Clios. Of the four original speakers, 
three were juniors and one was a sophomore. Of the 
additional four, two were juniors, and two, sophomores. 
In 1809 all four Clio speakers were juniors ; in 1810 two 
were juniors and two were sophomores. But by the 
next year the contest appears to have become an ex- 
clusively junior function, for the minutes of September 
25, 1911, report for that evening an "occasional meeting 
for the purpose of hearing the Juniors" who were to 
speak the evening before Commencement. 

For a hundred years or more no distinction that stu- 
dent life at Princeton offered was more highly regarded 



132 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

or more eagerly sought after than the honor of being 
one of the four men chosen to represent one's Hall in 
this annual competition in oratory; and recognition by 
the auditors, or in later times by the judges, as the best 
orator was the crowning triumph of undergraduate 
ambition. Until recent years the speaking took place 
the evening before Commencement. It attracted a 
crowded assemblage. Seats were in such demand that 
strict rules for their distribution had to be enforced. 
For many decades the expenses for programs, music, 
etc., were borne by the contestants. Then the Halls 
assumed them, share and share alike. Through a long 
period, the speaking was regarded as an exhibition rather 
than a competition. There were no prizes and no official 
declaration was made of the relative merits of the ora- 
tors. Indeed, in 1813 when the Faculty proposed to 
offer a prize for the best speaker, the two Halls "Re- 
solved that on the evening preceding Commencement, 
or any other period for the representation of each So- 
ciety by its speakers, no person or persons of said 
representation be permitted to speak as competitors for 
the prize instituted by the Faculty, leaving them how- 
ever at full liberty to do it at any other time they may 
think proper." But for all that there was the keenest 
rivalry for popular acclaim. The speakers wore their 
hall colors and the Whigs and Clios of the audience 
vied with each other in the loudness and prolongation 



COMPETITIONS AND HONORS 133 

of the applause with which they expressed their approval 
of the performances of their respective champions. 

The orators were long elected in each Hall by a vote 
of the members. This method of selection, at least for 
many years, produced satisfactory results. The choice 
was pretty sure to fall upon the men that were generally 
recognized by the body of members as the ablest speak- 
ers, for each Hall wished to make the best showing possi- 
ble in public. But as the number of students increased 
and aspirants for Junior Orator distinction became 
numerous, the competition for election grew to be a 
spirited contest. "Slates" were made, cliques were 
formed, and electioneering campaigns were conducted 
for weeks before the night of election, absorbing so much 
time and attention of the students as seriously to inter- 
fere with their college work. Even sectional prejudices 
were at times invoked, and in the fifties the Greek letter 
fraternities would combine to control the elections. The 
election itself was frequently attended with wild and 
tumultuous disorder, protracted far into the night, and 
often naturally there was dissatisfaction, charges of un- 
fairness, and bitter resentment when the votes were can- 
vassed and the results were announced. The culmination 
of turbulence was reached, as already noted, at the elec- 
tion in March 1857, when twenty-nine men of the 
defeated faction filed a fierce protest and boisterously 
retired from the Hall. 



134 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

The college authorities could not fail to take note of 
these evil conditions, and they determined to devise some 
plan for correcting them. The Halls were at once in 
arms against faculty interference with what they held 
to he a strictly hall matter — the right they had always 
exercised of selecting their orators according to their 
own rules, uncontrolled by outside authority. They ap- 
pointed committees to act together in defense of their 
ancient prerogative. These in June 1858 presented a 
remonstrance to the college authorities against their 
interference in the matter. The annual report of 1858 
reveals how deep the feeling was. "The Hall," it says, 
"was founded, built, paid for, and supported by the 
students of Nassau Hall, and by those who graduated 
from these walls. And we have always fancied, at least, 
that we were a free and independent body, separate and 
distinct from the College. Let this be as it may, we 
now claim as our right the representation of our Hall 
upon the college stage by four Junior Orators. . . . 
We ask you to raise your voices in our behalf ; in behalf 
of the liberties of Clio Hall. We believe you all must 
feel that if the Trustees carry out their intentions it will 
prove the ruin of our Society." Thereupon the annual 
meeting approved of the remonstrance and appointed a 
committee to present its resolution to the Board of 
Trustees. Though the Trustees were as deeply im- 
pressed as ever with the seriousness of the situation, 



COMPETITIONS AND HONORS 135 

yet, in view of the hall protests, they decided to post- 
pone action for the present, trusting that the Societies 
themselves would "find and apply some appropriate 
remedy to the admitted evils" of the existing method of 
electing Junior Orators. 

This hope of the Trustees was not realized; the evils 
were not abated; and in December 1859 the Trustees 
"by a unanimous vote transferred to the hands of the 
Faculty the uncontrolled management of the election 
of Junior Orators," as President Maclean notified a 
Clio Hall committee early in 1860. Thereupon indig- 
nant resolutions were adopted by the Hall; an appeal 
was addressed to the Clio members of the Board of 
Trustees, and the Whigs were invited to cooperate 
with the Clios in action for the common defense of their 
rights. While hall excitement was at its highest the 
following letter was received from President Maclean, 
of whose loyalty to Clio there was never any question: 

College of New Jersey 

Princeton, February 17, 1860. 
To the Clios ophic Society: — 

Inquiry having been made of me by one of your mem- 
bers with respect to the action of the Trustees of the 
College, at the meeting in December last, in reference 
to the selection of speakers for the evening before Com- 
mencement, I mentioned to him for your information 
what instructions the Trustees had given to the Faculty. 

Upon further consideration I deem it respectful to 
you and incumbent upon me to make a more formal 
statement to you of the matter. Learning with deep 



136 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

regret that the selection of speakers continued to be 
accompanied with excitement, disorder, and violation 
of the rules of the College, the Trustees deemed it their 
duty to withdraw from the Societies the privilege hith- 
erto allowed them of selecting the speakers, and they 
therefore instructed the Faculty to make the selection. 

Having said thus much in regard to the action and 
feeling of the Trustees, I can not close this communica- 
tion without assuring you that in doing what they did 
the Trustees were not regardless of your views and 
wishes as made known to them a year or two ago; and 
that if they could have devised a plan by which the 
evils they sought to remedy could in future be prevented 
without so radical a change in the manner of selecting 
speakers, they would have adopted it in preference to 
the one they did. Their only object was to remedy the 
evils referred to above. While they must maintain that 
so far as the College, its instruction, government, and 
public exercises are concerned, the decisions of the 
Trustees are by the charter of the College absolute and 
final; yet I am confident that they desire to exercise 
their authority in a manner acceptable to all concerned, 
and to grant to the students every indulgence in their 
power. What plan the Faculty will ultimately adopt 
to carry into effect the order of the Trustees, I am 
not able to say; but I can with confidence say that In 
framing a plan for this purpose the Faculty will be 
desirous to conform to the wishes of the Societies so 
far as they can consistently with the object aimed at 
by the Trustees. 

Let me suggest that no hasty action be taken by the 
Societies; but that the whole subject be seriously and 
calmly pondered for some time at least. Nothing can be 
gained by action at the present time which will not as 
easily be gained after a deliberate examination of the 
subject in all its phases ; and hasty resolves might serve 
only to embarrass the question. 

Respectfully and affectionately, 

John MacIvEan. 




Luther Martin, Class of 1766 



[From the plate by Edwin, owned by the Maryland Historical Society] 



COMPETITIONS AND HONORS 137 

Further protests on the part of the Halls were seen to 
be unavailing. Whereupon a joint committee of the two 
Halls was appointed to confer with the Faculty, and it 
was arranged that the Halls should vote as heretofore 
by secret ballot but that the ballots should be can- 
vassed by a committee of hall members of the Faculty. 
This plan, which was regarded at the time as "a settle- 
ment both agreeable to the Faculty and honorable to 
our Hall," did not do away with the electioneering and 
the factional controversies which caused the greater 
part of the evil. It only abated the disorder of election 
night. So, in 1865, it gave way to the sensible method 
which has ever since prevailed. All who desire to be 
candidates for Junior Orator appointments in each 
Hall engage in a speaking contest, and a committee of 
hall members of the Faculty names the four men who 
are adjudged to be the best speakers. 

On the assumption by the Faculty of complete control 
of the method of selecting the orators, the Trustees 
authorized the Faculty to bestow four gold medals (or 
books to the same value) on the four orators who in the 
public contest should be decided by the judges (one 
graduate member of each Hall and a member of the 
Faculty) to be the best orators. These prizes were 
given first in 1865. A few years later, by the will of 
Henry A. Stinnecke (Clio, '61), another prize was 
added. This was named in honor of John Maclean, who 



138 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

had recently resigned the Presidency. It is one hundred 
dollars and is given to the man who pronounces the best 
oration, regarded from the standpoint of literary and 
rhetorical excellence. This prize was awarded first in 
1872. For two or three years, at one period, when 
the endowment for this prize failed to produce revenue, 
the Halls each contributed fifty dollars so that there 
should be no interruption in the award of the prize. 

In the fifty-one years that the faculty prizes have 
been awarded (1865-1915), a Clio has taken the first 
prize twenty-six times ; the second prize twenty-six 
times ; the third prize thirty-one times ; the fourth prize 
twenty-five times. In the forty-four years (1872-1915) 
that the Maclean prize has been awarded, a Clio has won 
it twenty-four times. Thus, of the two hundred and 
forty-eight prizes awarded in the Junior Orator contest 
in all these years, Clios have received one hundred and 
thirty-two. 

The Junior Orator Contest no longer commands the 
interest that it formerly aroused. Instead of being 
the most popular and brilliant performance of com- 
mencement week, it receives practically no attention. 
It takes place now on Saturday forenoon. The only 
auditors are the judges and a friend or two of each of 
the speakers. In place of the thronged assemblage of 
other days, with music and flowers and all the circum- 
stance of an envied occasion, the young orators now 



COMPETITIONS AND HONORS 139 

must face the disheartening prospect of empty benches, 
and their periods, however eloquent, can waken no re- 
sponse but the maddening echo of their own voices. It 
is all very distressing to the old graduate who recalls the 
glory that was Whig and the grandeur that was Clio 
in the days when college oratory still made appeal to the 
taste and applause of "a polite assembly." tempora, 
o mores! 

Already in the early seventies of the last century there 
was a growing feeling that the public exhibitions of 
collegians were for the most part too unreal, too aca- 
demic, too little related to actual life and thought. It 
was under the impulse of this feeling that more stress 
began to be laid in various universities on public de- 
bating and that intercollegiate competitive debates also 
were established, in which questions of contemporaneous 
interest and importance were discussed. In Princeton 
in 1876 the Lynde inter-hall debate was established, 
Mr. Charles R. Lynde having given a fund to provide 
three prizes. Three men are chosen from the senior class 
in each Hall in much the same manner that the Junior 
Orators are selected, and the three prizes are awarded 
in the order of merit to the three successful competitors 
in a debate held just before the trials for the appoint- 
ment of intercollegiate debaters. In the forty years, 
1876-1915, a Clio has taken first prize twenty-two 
times ; second prize twenty-two times ; third prize seven- 



140 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

teen times. Only in taking third prize has Whig sur- 
passed Clio. 

In July 1825 the Whigs submitted a proposition to 
Clio, suggesting "the expediency of abolishing the speak- 
ing on the evening before Commencement [evidently 
from this mode of designation the speaking was not yet 
known as the "Junior Orator Contest"] and of sub- 
stituting in place of it some distinguished graduate 
from the two Societies alternately, who will deliver an 
oration before the two Societies assembled in the church 
upon that occasion." Committees from the two Halls 
weightily discussed this proposition, and presently 
recommended to the Halls: 

First: That it be [Lindley Murray might find it 
difficult to justify that "be"] expedient, and that it 
would redound to the credit of each Society, and have 
a beneficial tendency [Ah, well, he is a hard-hearted 
purist that would find fault with undergraduate expres- 
sion when the sense of it is reasonably clear!] on the 
parent Institution, if some distinguished honorary or 
graduate member of either Society should be annually 
appointed to deliver a discourse before them [Who 
cares that this "them" has no grammatical antecedent? 
You catch the meaning, don't you?] in joint meeting. 

Second: That it is [no "be" here!] inexpedient to 
abolish the speaking before Commencement. 

The recommendation of the joint committee was ac- 
cepted and ratified by the Halls, and the selection of 
the first orator was generously conceded to Clio. The 
choice fell upon the Honorable Samuel L. Southard (of 



COMPETITIONS AND HONORS 141 

the class of 1804) of New Jersey, a very distinguished 
statesman in his day. He was at that time Secretary of 
the Navy in the Cabinet of John Quincy Adams. He 
spoke Tuesday afternoon of commencement week in 
September 1825 ; and his oration made an auspicious be- 
ginning of a feature of the Princeton Commencement, 
long held in highest favor, which endured for more than 
fifty years. It was finally abandoned because of the 
decreased and decreasing interest on the part of com- 
mencement assemblages in anything that savored too 
distinctly of the intellectual life. The commencement 
period for some years has placed the greater stress on 
all the unacademic activities of student life — social, 
athletic, etc. ; and the more serious pursuits, the real 
things that the University exists to exemplify and to 
enforce, get scant attention and excite little interest, 
as compared with other times, in the busy, happy, 
pathetic days that mark the closing of the scholastic 
year. 

In the long period while this feature of commencement 
week flourished, and men still cared for academic ora- 
tory, many men of great fame and worth in American 
public life represented Whig or Clio on the platform of 
the old First Church, on Tuesday of commencement 
week, speaking to enthusiastic and delighted audiences. 
But who now would care for a list of their names or of 
their subjects? Always they received the formal thanks 



142 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

of the Societies, coupled with a request for permission 
to publish their "able and eloquent" — and that indeed 
they often were — addresses. In the library of the Uni- 
versity, unread and unnoted, volumes of these addresses 
are carefully preserved. Even a cursory thumbing of 
their unsoiled pages shows they have a strong family 
likeness, after the similitude of baccalaureate sermons. 
They speak in tones of tender reminiscence of the joys 
and the solicitudes of student life ; they voice regret that 
fuller use of its opportunities was not made; they 
abound in good advice and sound maxims of virtue, suffi- 
cient to save the world. Ah, how familiar it all is, and 
how little ardent youth, with all the world before them 
where to choose, give heed to the wise admonitions of 
those that already know somewhat of that world ! 

On more than one occasion the Societies sought to ar- 
range to be represented alternately by a poet also at 
Commencement. But the poets, for a wonder, seemed 
to be exceeding shy of the wooing of the Halls, and so 
all efforts in this direction failed; without serious loss, 
one may well believe, to literature. It is seldom, indeed, 
that the "occasional" poem rises level to the occasion, 
much less survives it. 

There has always been great rejoicing in either 
Hall when the record of the year has shown that it has 
carried off the majority of the college honors. When, 
as sometimes has happened, one or the other Hall has 



COMPETITIONS AND HONORS US 

won all the chief honors for that year, the jubilation and 
the exultation among the members of the winning Hall 
have been exceeding great, and the depression and gloom 
of the members of the other Hall correspondingly pro- 
found, and yet relieved by a determination to show an- 
other year that they were neither defeated nor dis- 
couraged. Clio, especially in the earlier years of the 
nineteenth century, manifested her pride in those of her 
sons who won high honors in many ways. She bestowed 
gold medals or keys upon them ; she hung their portraits 
on her walls; and she wrote them elaborate letters of 
congratulation and commendation which were spread 
at large on the minutes, the adulatory phrases of which 
are still, even in this colder and more prosaic age, a joy 
to read. 

Probably, in the long years since 1765, there has been 
no great difference in the aggregate of college honors 
taken by Whigs and Clios. It would be a tedious and 
not very profitable task to compile the exact facts from 
the records. From what examination the author has 
made he believes there would be a slight preponderance 
in favor of Clio. That at least is shown in the record of 
the Junior Orator and the Lynde debate prizes already 
given. It is shown likewise in the combined record of 
the three chief honors of commencement day, the Latin 
salutatory, the English salutatory, and the valedictory 
oration. From the Commencement of 1765 to that of 



lU THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

1915 inclusive, except the years 1776-1778 when the 
stress of war prevented regular commencement exercises, 
a Clio was the Latin salutatorian eighty times. During 
the hundred and twelve years in which the second honor 
usually went to the English salutatorian a Clio received 
the honor sixty-two times. From 1765 to 1915 (for 
1767 there is no record of a valedictorian nor was there 
any of course for 1776-1778) a Clio was valedictorian 
seventy times. Thus of the four hundred and seven 
possible honors of these three kinds Clio won two hun- 
dred and twelve. 

In scholarship, in debate, and in oratory, it is safe to 
say, therefore, that the record of achievement shows 
that the Cliosophians have been slightly superior to their 
friends the Whigs. 



CHAPTER VI 

Insignia, Initiation, and Secrecy 

The Whigs appear to have taken their motto at the 
very beginning of their career. But Clio got on pros- 
perously for more than fifty years without seeking to 
embody in a striking phrase its predominating principle 
or purpose. It had at an early day — ^just when the rec- 
ords do not show — adopted pink for its colors, and this 
has always been retained. And during half a century 
the only badge seems to have been a simple pink ribbon. 
In March 1817 it was proposed that some improvement 
in the badge should be devised and a committee was ap- 
pointed to offer suggestions to that end. On the evening 
of April 8, 1817, the committee reported in favor of 
adopting a motto, which with an image of the muse 
Clio should be stamped on the ribbon of pink. The 
committee submitted four mottoes from which the Hall 
was asked to make selection. It promptly chose Prod- 
esse quam Conspici. What the other three were the 
minutes do not disclose; regrettably, one cannot help 
feeling, for it would be most interesting to compare what 
was rejected with the noble choice that was made. 

It would be interesting likewise to know how this 

145 



146 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

motto — that of the house of Somers — was brought to the 
attention of the committee. Not improbably this was 
done by some member of the Faculty, who recalled the 
letter of Governor Belcher to the Trustees of the Col- 
lege, modestly but firmly refusing to allow his name 
to be attached to the new college building. The Trus- 
tees had presented an address to the Governor, dated 
Newark, September 24, 1755, thanking him in most 
laudatory terms for his part and interest in the creation 
of the College. The address ended with this sentence: 
"As the College of New Jersey views you in the light of 
its founder, patron, and benefactor, and the impartial 
world will esteem it a respect deservedly due to the 
name of Belcher; permit us to dignify the edifice now 
erecting at Princeton, with that endeared appellation: 
and when your Excellency is translated to a house not 
made with hands eternal m the heavens, let Belcher-Hall 
proclaim your beneficent act, for the advancement of 
Christianity and the emolument of the arts and sciences, 
to the latest ages." 

In his reply Governor Belcher had these words : "I 
take a particular grateful notice of the respect and 
honour you are desirous of doing me and my family in 
calling the edifice lately erected in Princeton by the 
name of Belcher-Hall; but you will be so good as to 
excuse me, while I absolutely decline such an honour, 
for I have always been very fond of the motto of a late 



INSIGNIA, INITIATION, SECRECY 147 

great personage, Prodesse quam Conspici. But I must 
not leave this head without asking the favour of your 
naming the present building Nassau Hall." 

At all events, whether by deliberate choice or by 
happy accident, the motto connects our Society, in senti- 
ment at least, with the memory of a most worthy gentle- 
man and with the very beginning of Nassau Hall. The 
significance of the motto is altogether admirable, alto- 
gether worthy of acceptance as a guiding principle of 
life. Literally it means "To be useful rather than to 
attract attention." But any number of paraphrases 
suggest themselves that perhaps better reproduce its 
spirit: "Service rather than conspicuity" ; "Sub- 
stance rather than seeming" ; "Genuineness, not 
pretence"; "Sincerity, not simulation"; "Seriousness, 
not affectation"; "Reality, not counterfeit"; "Verity, 
not verisimilitude" ; "Force, not 'front.' " 

The motto at the time of its adoption both fairly re- 
flected the quality that had always been characteristic 
of the discipline of the Hall and fitly expressed the 
principle which it was desired should be of compelling 
force. It is safe to say that in all the long years since, 
this motto has insensibly exercised a potent influence 
for good, as inculcating a fine ideal of conduct, on all 
the sons of Clio. 

The simple badge of pink ribbon, bearing the figure 
of Clio and the motto, continued in use for many years, 



148 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

but evidently with many and various modifications. 
Whether it was worn regularly or only on special or state 
occasions does not appear. There is plenty of evidence 
during these years of growing dissatisfaction with the 
badge. It was "objected to not only by members of 
the Society but by strangers, both on account of its 
indelicacy [Poor, scantily draped Clio!] and its mean 
appearance." Moreover, "when a Brother graduated 
from the Hall he had no memento of the Society." 
Something should be procured "which might be worn in 
future life." The agitation came to a climax in August, 
1835, when the Hall decided in favor of a gold badge, 
to cost not more than five dollars, which every member 
should be required to obtain. No description remains of 
this badge, which was in the form of a medal. In all 
probability it was worn, at least on public occasions, 
in connection with the Hall colors. It is much to be 
regretted, one must be allowed to repeat, that the Hall 
has not preserved in its archives examples of its various 
insignia — ^badges, medals, and keys — and copies of all 
its official documents, diplomas, catalogues, etc. The 
work of its historian would have been vastly simpler and 
altogether more satisfactory. 

This new badge, superior as it was thought to be to 
its predecessor, did not long please the Society. The 
annual report of 1837 declares : "The badge has been 
the cause of much dissatisfaction and a fruitful source 



INSIGNIA, INITIATION, SECRECY 149 

of contention. The original badge was quickly super- 
seded by a new one and to this succeeded another, and 
each in its turn was subj ected to much alteration ; that 
they attracted attention [The grammar here is quite 
hopeless] they seem to have changed their appearance 
and modified their form almost with the succession of the 
seasons. Indeed they form a congerie [sic] that might 
serve to illustrate the different tastes and habits of the 
successive occupants of the Hall. The last badge, which 
was undoubtedly the most chaste and classical, was repu- 
diated on account of its outrageous indelicacy, and in 
adopting the present, our members complain that they 
[who?] have bequeathed to us absolute vulgarity, and 
an ornament which is better fitted to grace the tawdry 
appendages of a martial champion than to distinguish 
the calling of a student. It is proposed to disown the 
badge now tolerated and restore a former one which is 
more suitable to the purposes of a literary badge." 

We are not surprised, therefore, to learn that in 
November 1840 this badge was abolished, and a com- 
mittee, composed of Frederick S. Giger, Theodore L. 
Cuyler, Nathan M. Owen, and John D. Scott, was ap- 
pointed to devise a new one. The committee's sugges- 
tion was adopted a few weeks later. The new badge con- 
sisted of a gold medal attached to a pink ribbon two 
inches broad and eighteen inches long stamped with the 
image of Clio, — whether as of old is not recorded. This 



150 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

badge the committee "conceived to be the most classical, 
and on that account the most appropriate badge for an 
institution such as ours. It is also neat and chaste and 
in every way becoming a literary society." What more 
could one reasonably ask? But it is difficult to imagine 
a Princeton student of later generations appearing on 
the campus adorned with a pink ribbon two inches broad 
and half a yard in length, — unless in preparation for 
a pee-rade, and then, doubtless, it would never occur to 
him that his decoration was "neat and chaste and in 
every way becoming." 

In 1845 it was voted that the badge might be worn as 
a pin, set off with a rosette of pink. In the next few 
decades there were frequent discussions of the badge and 
modifications or new forms were from time to time 
adopted. Gradually, however, the Hall ceased to attach 
much importance to its emblem, and while the Clio pin 
can still be had, few if any members care to possess one ; 
and only on rare occasions are the historic colors worn 
or displayed. 

It appears from the records that the Clio grip has had 
a continuous struggle for existence. When it was in- 
stituted, no man knoweth ; but it is not improbable that 
it dates from the very early days, for no secret society 
feels itself fully equipped without possessing a secret 
sign. But evidently it was not very seriously regarded 
and tended to fall into disuse. For a long period it may 



INSIGNIA, INITIATION, SECRECY 151 

be doubted whether any Cliosophian ever even heard of 
its early existence. The writer has noted only two refer- 
ences to it in the minutes. In 1816 there is record of a 
resolution "that the private sign (or grip) of the So- 
ciety be given to new members when initiated." It is 
evident from this that the grip was no new thing. Then 
there is complete silence until 1838, when the Hall or- 
dered "that the ancient grip by which members of 
Clio Hall were formerly recognized by each other be 
revived." This form of expression clearly indicates that 
for some time the grip had ceased to be practiced. And 
now the effort at revival seems not to have endured very 
long, for General Alfred A. Woodhull, of the class of 
1856, recalls that in his college days, while he was aware 
that the Society once had a grip, he knew of no one 
then in College that could tell what it was. But a few 
years later it was resuscitated, possibly through the in- 
terest and recollection of Professor John T. Duffield 
('41), and began again to be ceremoniously imparted to 
new members in the course of their initiation. It is 
doubtful whether it is ever used after the first few days 
of novelty have passed. 

However useful a private sign or grip may be for a 
secret fraternity of numerous chapters and wide- 
reaching affiliations, it can have little value for the 
members of a single local society. It is not strange, 
therefore, that the Clio grip should so often have fallen 



152 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

into complete disuse and that it has seldom seemed to be 
of practical importance. 

For the Cliosophic Society has never had affiliation 
with any other society. Early in 1815 a body of stu- 
dents at Yale College, who had seceded from the 
Linonian Society of that institution, petitioned the 
Hall for permission to constitute themselves a branch 
of the Cliosophic Society. The petition excited lively 
interest, and at the next regular meeting of the Hall the 
subject for debate was the question, "Would it be 
beneficial to the Cliosophic Society to establish a branch 
in Yale College.?" After earnest and ample discussion 
the question was answered with an emphatic and almost 
unanimous negative. A few years later, to a somewhat 
similar request from a society at Dickinson College, the 
Hall replied : "The nature of the institution is such as 
not to admit of our forming any connection of the kind 
proposed." And this attitude of absolute independence 
and individuality has uniformly been maintained. The 
name "Cliosophic" has in more than one instance 
been applied to other American literary societies, sug- 
gested no doubt by the fame of our Society, but no such 
society has had any relations with ours. 

In the first decade of the nineteenth century, the 
custom was adopted of conferring gold keys upon men 
of the graduating class who took high honors. In 
1810, indeed, the Society voted a key to one brother 



INSIGNIA, INITIATION, SECRECY 153 

"in testimony of his being worthy of an honour though 
not granted one by the Faculty"; — the Society evi- 
dently feeling itself better qualified to determine a 
question of this kind than the college authorities. 
(There have been many instances when the Hall 
has expressed indignant opinion of purblind faculty 
judgment. In June 1848, for example, the clerk was 
instructed by unanimous vote to write to the senior 
Clios appointed by the Faculty to speak at Commence- 
ment, requesting them in the name of the Society to 
refuse to speak. Whereupon the Trustees took instant 
and vigorous action.) 

"The medal to be presented to those who obtain hon- 
ours for the Hall," the record for 1816 declares, "shall 
be a gold watch-key about one and one-half inches in 
length and of proportionable width. On one side shall 
be engraved the figure of a Grecian temple, as large as 
the size of the key may render convenient ; in the Temple 
a Female Figure in a proper habit [note that !] repre- 
senting Clio, placing a crown of laurel upon the head 
of a youth; on the top of the temple a winged figure, 
representing Fame, sounding a trumpet ; over the Tem- 
ple, in a circular form, the name of the person to whom 
it is presented, and under the Temple on one line the 
words In gradu Honoris, and on another line the honour 
obtained, as primo, secundo, etc. ( This last, however, is 
to be inserted or omitted at the option of the person to 



154 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

whom the medal is given.) Near the upper corners of 
the key on the same side in the fictitious hand of the 
Society the words, 'Founded 1765.' On the other side 
of the key the words, Datum a Soc. Clio. Col. N. Caes 
iv Kal. Oct. MDCCCXVI. (The date to be thus, or 
otherwise as miay really be the case.)" 

So elaborate is this design that we are not surprised 
at the appended note that "owing to the unskilfulness 
of the workman this part [that of placing the "Female 
Figure" in the temple] could not be carried into effect." 

Mr. Bailey Tyler, of Haymarket, Virginia, has a 
medal which was given by the Hall in 1819 to his 
grandfather, William B. Tyler, of Virginia, who grad- 
uated that year, being one the fifth-honor men. 
(Remarkably enough that year^ — so inefficient was the 
system of grading — three men took first honor ; one, sec- 
ond honor; three, third honor; four, fourth honor; 
eight, fifth honor, and four, sixth honor.) This is the 
only honor medal that the writer knows to be in exist- 
ence ; but it is not at all unlikely that others may have 
been kept as heirlooms in the families of early Clioso- 
phians. This medal is of about the same size as the one 
just described, and bears on the reverse a Latin inscrip- 
tion, fixing the date of its presentation, exactly corre- 
sponding with that given above. But it differs very 
greatly in the decoration of the obverse. Here we have 
depicted a circular temple of eight columns with a 



INSIGNIA, INITIATION, SECRECY 155 

domed roof, from which radiate shafts of light. The 
temple stands on what appears to be a mound. Along 
a band above the temple runs a brief inscription in 
cipher which is quite unintelligible now. Doubtless it 
had pleasant significance to the happy recipient of the 
medal. 

In the earlier years keys were given only (except by 
special vote) to men that had taken one of the four 
highest honors in the graduating class. Then for a few 
years they were given to all men on the honor list. Fi- 
nally the distinction was confined to men taking the three 
highest honors. The last year in which keys were given 
was 1832 ; the Hall after thorough debate having come 
to the wise conclusion that "the benefit thereby accruing 
to each that received the keys was comparatively small," 
and that the money expended therefor might much more 
advantageously be devoted to the increase of the library. 

It was not many years after this, however, that the 
practice was instituted of giving gold medals (or their 
equivalent value in books) as prizes for success in con- 
tests of oratory, essay writing, and debate within the 
Hall. These contests have undoubtedly been highly 
beneficial in stimulating interest in the literary and 
oratorical activities of the Hall. 

From its very beginning, in all probability, it has 
been the custom of the Hall to grant a diploma to every 
graduate that had faithfully performed his hall duties. 



156 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

At any rate, there is positive evidence that the Plain- 
Dealing Society, the predecessor of the American Whig 
Society, granted a diploma in 1766. A copy of this 
document is given in Professor Giger's History. It may 
confidently be inferred, therefore, that the Well-Meaning 
Society had adopted the same practice, and that this 
practice was continued by the Societies when they were 
revived under the new names. Indeed, the University 
Library has a Whig diploma given to a graduate in 
1773, four years after the Society's formation. 

Just what the original form and wording of the Clio 
diploma were, is not known. The University Library 
has recently come into possession of the Clio diploma 
and the College diploma granted to Silas Wood, later an 
eminent lawyer, legislator, and the first and foremost 
historian of Long Island, who graduated in 1789. Both 
diplomas are in manuscript throughout, and are ad- 
mirable examples of the penmanship of the period. Both 
are without embellishment other than the ornamental 
capitals and flourishes of the scrivener. Both have, 
inserted, a broad ribbon of the Clio pink, sealed respec- 
tively with the Clio and the College seal. We may infer, 
therefore, that the College diploma of a Whig at that 
time would have borne the Whig colors. This Clio 
diploma is much more elaborate than the College di- 
ploma. It is an oblong parchment sheet, thirteen by 
twenty inches in size. This is the most ancient Clio 



INSIGNIA, INITIATION, SECRECY 157 

diploma that the writer has seen. It may well be that 
it gives us in shape and wording the original diploma; 
but as to this no positive assertion can be made. 

Nor do we know when the first engraved diploma 
was procured. It is certain, however, that at the begin- 
ning of the nineteenth century the phraseology was 
modified and a new design for an engraved diploma, no 
description of which remains, was obtained. Again in 
1811 a new engraving was ordered, to cost not to exceed 
$800, when the choice of Hercules between Virtue and 
Pleasure was decided upon to be its ornamental feature. 
Evidently this did not prove to be altogether satisfac- 
tory, for four years later there was a demand for a new 
design. Of this diploma the Hall possesses an example, 
hanging framed conspicuously in the main corridor. It 
is the diploma conferred in 1816 on John Maclean, des- 
tined to play so illustrious a role in the history of the 
College and of the Society. 

Subsequently, at various times, there were further 
modifications in form of expression and emblematic 
delineation. These frequent changes, like the similar 
changes in the constitution, the laws, and the language 
of the ceremonial addresses, afford further evidence of 
that quality which has been a constant characteristic of 
the Society — the desire to make its institutions and ut- 
terances conform to present needs, present conceptions, 
present ideals. The fundamental principles and aims 



158 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

have resolutely been maintained, but methods of accom- 
plishment and modes of expression have changed with 
the changing fashions of the times. So only can any 
social organism continue alive and alert. 

The initiation into the Hall has pretty generally been 
attended with much pomp and circumstance — and, alto- 
gether too frequently, with other things. The details are 
much better left to the imagination or to the recollec- 
tion of one's own experience, even if it were quite proper 
to set them down in cold type. The minutes afford ample 
material for a chapter on the varying methods of initia- 
tion, which at one time or another prevailed, with suffi- 
cient hints of the accompanying unauthorized and even 
forbidden activities intended to increase the hilarity of 
the occasion, to enable one pretty accurately to guess 
what things were doing far into the wee small hours of 
old initiation nights. Elaborate schemes of initiation 
were formally adopted at times by the Hall, ingenious, 
impressive, and bewildering, and these were perpetrated 
with a zeal and solemnity worthy of a nobler cause. 
There are intimations of prolonged blindfolded proces- 
sions up and down stairs, the way impeded with unac- 
countable pieces of furniture, of sudden descents by 
trap-door or slippery inclined plane to a room hung in 
sepulchral black, made hideous with gruesome emblems, 
and lighted only with blue flame ; and much, much more, 
of equally awe-inspiring or terrorizing quality. 



INSIGNIA, INITIATION, SECRECY 159 

For the most part these fantastic performances, silly 
and childish as they may have been, were free of all 
harm; though now and then a youth of sensitive or 
highly nervous temperament was so affected that there 
would be a buzz of comment about the campus for a 
few days, and on more than one occasion investigation 
and rebuke from the Faculty followed. Once, indeed. 
President Maclean, on hearing exaggerated rumors of 
certain initiation devices, wrote an expostulatory letter 
to the Hall. The Hall replied with offended, almost 
presumptuous, dignity: "The subject precludes discus- 
sion outside the Hall." Even young men of steady 
nerves and wholly normal temperament did not always 
recall initiation night without a flush of resentment. 
Robert McKnight ('39), speaking in 1865 at the cen- 
tennial celebration, said: "I do not know what im- 
pressions were made upon the minds of the rest of the 
Clios present at their initiation; but I know that upon 
my young mind they were peculiar and not altogether 
desirable. I remember the gorgons, the mysteries, the 
shapes most dire, painted on the walls as we were taken 
up the staircase; and I must confess I felt very much 
like the hero of the Mantuan bard, Obstupui, steterunt- 
que comae, et vox faucibus haesitj^ But apparently 
in the earlier time the initiation was decorously con- 
ducted. The letter from a graduate of 1802, given by 
Professor Giger, asserts : "The ceremony of admission 



160 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

was the most solemn and impressive I have ever known 
in my experience. The unlooked-for dignity and se- 
riousness of the scene quite overturned my levity, and I 
could scarcely believe the change one brief hour had pro- 
duced. And I am far from being impressionahle, to use 
a Gallicism." 

Now and again there was lively discussion in the 
Hall over the excesses of initiation night; and the 
determination would be reached to reform them alto- 
gether. Then for a period extreme dullness and de- 
corum would characterize the occasion, until there would 
be a demand for a return to the old order, the new mode 
of procedure, as a special committee on the subject in 
1858 declared, not being "sufficiently horrific and melo- 
dramatic." Even at the present time, if report speak 
truly, initiation night has not been robbed of all its 
anxieties for the neophyte. The very word "initiation" 
seems to suggest to the youthful mind (perhaps, also to 
the average man, no longer youthful) that some more or 
less ludicrous or terrifying ordeal should accompany its 
fulfilment. But one might reasonably suppose that 
entrance into a literary society could be signalized by 
some form of ceremony which should be much more im- 
pressive and convenient (in the good old meaning of that 
word) than grotesque horse-play or frivolous, if harm- 
less, indignities. 

Down to the autumn of 1851 it was the custom in 



INSIGNIA, INITIATION, SECRECY 161 

Hall to use the term "Brother" in addressing a fellow 
member or referring to him. Then the practice was 
abandoned and "Mister" was used until the spring of 
1857, when, on the advice of the old graduates, Brother 
was brought back into use and so continued until the 
revision of the constitution in 1862. Of course this 
form of address was forbidden in public. It was one of 
the jealously kept secrets, and its use in the hearing 
of an outsider, even though quite involuntary, subjected 
the culprit to discipline. 

All the other secrets, relating to the titles of the offi- 
cers, the fictitious names, the kind and order of the 
exercises, etc., etc., were of similar intrinsic importance, 
and every effort was made religiously to guard them. 
The Cliosophians were no more zealous in this respect 
than the Whigs. Woe unto the member of either Hall 
that wilfully divulged to a member of the rival society 
anything that took place in Hall or any fact regarding 
its officers or activities. He was sure to be dealt with 
summarily and severely. 

Each Hall assisted the other in discovering and disci- 
plining those guilty of blabbing. Even thoughtless in- 
advertencies of speech or unconscious allusions to Hall 
affairs from which a Whig might draw inferences 
brought condemnation and reproof. The minutes 
abound in transcripts of correspondence between the 
Halls on this score, in accounts of investigations by 



162 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

committees, in reports of trials of men charged with this 
offense, and in statements of the penalties inflicted. 

A favorite method of "hoaxing" a freshman soon 
after his admission to Hall was for a group of sopho- 
mores, all Clios but one of whom pretended to be a 
Whig, to enter into conversation with the freshman. 
The pretended Whig would mention casually some pro- 
found Clio secret. The others would be indignant and 
demand how he knew. He would boast that he knew 
much more than he had already intimated and give the 
poor freshman as his authority. The latter's protesta- 
tions of innocence would be scouted, his accuser asking 
him reproachfully if he had really forgotten what he 
said the other night when he had taken too much. 
Whereupon more reproaches from the group ; more hints 
of dire consequences when the Hall should take up the 
case; more amazement that he could have been so un- 
mindful of his oath; more pity for his impending dis- 
grace, until the protesting, denying, appealing youth 
was thoroughly frightened. Then the tormentors either 
relented, and, revealing the hoax, made the freshman 
stand treat, or they left him to his misery until he 
someway learned the truth himself. 

Unquestionably this determination of the Halls to pro- 
tect their secrets, however unimportant they really 
were, had a beneficial influence on the members. It 
exalted the dignity of the Halls in the estimation of 



INSIGNIA, INITIATION, SECRECY 163 

the members ; it stimulated their loyalty and rivalry ; 
and, more important still, it impressed them with the 
high duty of faithfully observing their plighted word. 
It did not so much matter that the secrets themselves 
had little significance. It mattered greatly that the 
promise to hold them sacred should not be violated. 
Here was a real test of character. 

Doubtless the secrecy of the Halls, such as it was, 
long served a good purpose. The minutes afford re- 
peated evidence that for a century or more it was in- 
tensely cherished. Thus, one evening in 1799, a mem- 
ber was censured for leaving a painter alone in the 
Hall; and this incident led to the immediate adoption 
of two resolutions for the better protection of the Clio- 
sophic mysteries. The first ordered "that whenever any 
member [shall] introduce any person not a member of 
this Society into the room, he shall remove all the books 
and papers indicative of the proceedings of Society 
from view and the tables from their proper places." 
The second made it the duty of "the key-keeper to bum 
all the useless papers lying in the Hall which would lead 
to a discovery of the secrets of this Society." Regula- 
tions of similar intent are frequently recorded. The 
annual report of 1854, after recounting the entrance 
of a stranger by mistake into the Hall and the conse- 
quent purchase of a secret lock "to prevent the recur- 
ance (sic) of similar accidents," goes on to say: "By 



164 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

this means we can preserve our secrecy inviolate. Ever 
may it continue so, and never may the day come when 
Clio Hall and her mysteries shall be exposed to the 
impertinent gaze of the world." 

But long ago there began to be those in both Halls 
who questioned the utility of continuing to maintain 
secrecy. These in later years constantly grew in num- 
bers and influence; and early in the college year 1914- 
1915, as the result of renewed agitation and negotiation 
between committees of the two Halls in the preceding 
semester, their view prevailed and secrecy as between the 
two was practically abolished. Under present condi- 
tions the business proceedings of the Halls still remain 
secret, and students that are members of neither are 
not permitted to enter the doors of either of them at 
any time. But a Whig may enter Clio Hall with a 
Clio, or a Clio, Whig Hall with a Whig, except at the 
time of business meetings or hall smokers ; and either 
Hall may be opened for inter-hall debates, or for the 
meetings of literary clubs, composed of Whigs and 
Clios, or for speeches by outsiders which members of 
both Halls may attend. 

The hope is that these ancient institutions of student 
self-culture in intellectual activities and in parlia- 
mentary training are entering on a new epoch of in- 
creased vigor and usefulness. As a propitious sign for 
the future, it may be noted that immediately under the 



INSIGNIA, INITIATION, SECRECY 165 

new relations, a series of inter-hall debates, taking 
place alternately in each Hall, was arranged ; and dur- 
ing the year Clio provided a notable course of eight 
lectures, open to members of both Societies, by men of 
very great distinction as publicists and writers, who 
spoke on various questions relating to the frightful 
European war. 



CHAPTER VII 



Interests and Incidents 



The minutes from the earliest years, as well as the 
annual reports, show that the hall library has been an 
object of constant solicitude. For many decades, when 
the college library was meagrely supplied, the hall 
library was a most valuable supplement to that of the 
College, and the Hall regularly appropriated for the 
purchase of new books all that it could possibly spare 
after paying the necessary running expenses. The 
books selected were for the most part, as records of 
purchases show, the works of standard authors in pure 
literature, in history, politics, travel, science, and 
scholarship. By the time the new Hall was built the 
single upper room in what is now Stanhope Hall which 
had to serve the Society for all purposes was over- 
crowded with books, the number being more than 
twenty-five hundred. 

The care of the books in those years was always a 
serious problem. There seems to have been no exact 
system, or if so great laxity in enforcing it, of account- 
ing for the books taken out or making certain of their 
return. Men were fined, to be sure, for using the books 

166 



INTERESTS AND INCIDENTS 167 

without covering them and for retainirg them overtime. 
But evidently it was easy for men to take books away 
without leave and to forget to return them. There is 
frequent complaint of missing books, of valuable sets 
being broken, of books with the Clio mark turning up 
in second-hand shops and out of the way places. Reg- 
ularly near the end of every college year committees of 
search were appointed to scour the college and seminary 
rooms and the houses of the village and gather in the 
missing and forgotten books. A careful investigation 
of the library early in 1838 revealed, to the amazement 
of the members, that nearly nine hundred volumes were 
missing. Prodigious efforts were put forth to rescue 
them. A notice even was inserted in the Princeton 
Whig, calling upon everyone that had Clio books im- 
mediately to return them. But more than half of the 
missing volumes failed of recovery. From time to time 
the broken sets and the old and worn books were weeded 
out and disposed of by lottery or sale to members or 
were sold to second-hand dealers to make room for new 
and more desirable works. 

It was not till long after the library was established 
in its own room in the new Hall that anything like an 
orderly arrangement of the books, an adequate cata- 
logue, or a reasonably effective method of insuring the 
safety and return of books lent came into existence. 
Very few, if any, of the books purchased iii the older 



168 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

time now remain in the Hall library. Most that still 
endured were transferred to the University Library some 
years ago. Indeed, the only ancient volume, that the 
writer has observed on the shelves is one with a history. 
It is Littleton's "Latine Dictionary In Four Parts, 
I An English-Latine II A Latine-English III A Latine 
Proper IV A Latine Barbarous, Wherein The Latine 
and English are adjusted, with what care might be, both 
as to Stock of Words and Properties of Speech,*^ which 
was printed in London in 1678. It was presented to 
the Society by John Provost just after his graduation 
in 1833. In the autumn of 1864 it was thrown on a 
scrap heap, because of its worn condition. Thence it 
was rescued by Charles F. Richardson C65), of Had- 
donfield. New Jersey, who retained it for more than 
fifty years. On January 23, 1915, Mr. Richardson 
restored it to the Hall, "as a relic of early printing, 
with the request that it remain in the library as long 
as it exists, and then go to the University Library for 
preservation." 

The library now is probably not appreciably larger 
in the number of its volumes than it was a half century 
ago. Its shelves are devoted principally to belles let- 
tres, to works of fiction, both of the great novelists of 
the past and of modern writers, and to books of. current 
popular interest. 

In the annual report for 1865 special attention was 



INTERESTS AND INCIDENTS 169 

given to the needs of the library, its f lUen state, and 
the lack of money for its renewal, and the suggestion 
was made that steps should be taken to create an en- 
dowment fund of ten thousand dollars. The annual 
meeting "highly approved" of this suggestion, and 
"recommended to the attending members to take im- 
mediate measures for carrying this suggestion into ef- 
fect." Accordingly, at the beginning of the next college 
year, the Society promptly acted, appointing a com- 
mittee, of which Professor John T. Duffield, ever willing 
and indefatigable in the service of Clio, was made chair- 
man, to solicit subscriptions. This committee at once 
sent out an appeal to Cliosophians, urging "that unless 
the endowment of our library be speedily consummated, 
we can not hope to compete with our rival successfully 
in the future as in the past." The appeal brought 
meagre results. The first considerable gift to the de- 
sired end was made at the Commencement of 1868 by 
the Honorable John I. Blair, who a few years later was 
to contribute so generously to the new building fund. 
He gave the Society one thousand dollars. At the same 
time fifteen members of the graduating class pledged 
themselves to give ten dollars yearly for three years. 
Other similar pledges were made by later graduates and 
contributions were made at annual meetings until in 
1874 the fund was something more than four thousand 
dollars. No efforts have been made since that period to 



170 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

increase the endowment, which is now exactly $4000 
and is invested in bonds. Professor John T. Duffield 
was the trustee and administrator of the fund as long 
as he lived. It is now in the custody of Dean William 
F. Magie. The fund has produced a steady though not 
large income for the support of the library. 

The Society possesses one other endowment fund. 
For this it is indebted to the well-known New Jersey 
philanthropist, Dr. J. Ackerman Coles, an honorary 
member of 1889. It is the sum of one thousand dollars 
which Dr. Coles gave to the Society in October 1902. 
According to the terms of the letter of gift, the ac- 
cumulated interest from this foundation is to be "ap- 
plied every four years for the purchase of a portrait 
bust of George Washington, to be cast in bronze at the 
Barbedienne Foundry in France from the model made 
from life by Jean Antoine Houdon in 1788," which shall 
be given to the member of the Society, who, in a compe- 
tition open to all members, shall be adjudged to have 
delivered the best original speech on some patriotic sub- 
ject. This prize has been competed for at regular inter- 
vals since its institution. The principal of this fund is 
to be kept intact in perpetuity to serve its praiseworthy 
purpose. It is at the present time administered by Dean 
William F. Magie. 

The first catalogue of the members of the Society 
appeared in 1822. It had been in preparation for three 



INTERESTS AND INCIDENTS 171 

or four years, the work involved being 7ery great. No 
copy is at present extant, so far as the author knows. 
Doubtless it was incomplete and abounded in inac- 
curacies. At irregular intervals since, catalogues have 
been published, and it is evident that great effort has 
been made to give a complete and accurate list of the 
membership. But the effort has sadly failed of realiza- 
tion. The latest catalogue, that of 1914, is very far 
from being what it should be. Errors of omission and 
commission are deplorably numerous. Only by a most 
careful and painstaking reexamination of the minutes 
of the Society and other sources, with constant com- 
parison with the general catalogue of the University, 
would it be possible to present a reasonably correct and 
satisfactory list of Clio's sons. It is to be hoped that 
this task may sometime be undertaken. 

The first reference to the railway, noted in the min- 
utes, appears in June 1845. The Hon. George M. 
Dallas (1810), at that time Vice-President of the United 
States, had promised to preside at the annual meeting. 
The Society made preparations to give him a special 
welcome on his arrival from Philadelphia. It was ar- 
ranged that a carriage with a committee of four (two 
members of the Faculty and two students) should meet 
him at the railway "depot" — then down by the canal — 
and escort him to the village. But at the eleventh hour 
Mr. Dallas was obliged by an event of national signifi- 



172 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

cance to forego attendance at Commencement. His let- 
ter to the clerk of the Society, regretting his inability 
to keep his engagement, is worthy of record: 

Philadelphia, June 21, 1845. 
My dear sir: — 

It is with real regret that I am obliged very suddenly 
and unexpectedly to apprize you of my inability to com- 
ply with my engagement to preside in Clio Hall on 
Wednesday next. The citizens of Philadelphia have 
been greatly agitated by the death of General Jackson. 
They met without distinction of political party, and 
having resolved on a civil and military funeral proces- 
sion, selected me to deliver an eulogium. Of this a com- 
mittee from the town meeting has just apprized me: 
and I hasten to say that a public duty of this sort 
could alone prevent my being in Princeton on Wednes- 
day. The solemnity here takes place on the morning 
of Thursday. I will thank you to communicate the 
matter to my young brethren. 

Your friend and serv't, 

G. M. Dallas. 
David Stevenson Esq. 

The minutes of the Society show every degree of care 
and carelessness in their transcription. There is every 
variety of chirography from copperplate perfection to 
crabbed illegibility. Only in a few instances, however, 
have the clerks manifested marked weakness or striking 
originality in spelling. Many clerks have set off their 
minutes with really noteworthy frontispieces and tail- 
pieces, showing clever pen-and-ink or water-color de- 



INTERESTS AND INCIDENTS 173 

signs, and have employed various inks for initial 
capitals. This practice was common along about 
1840. Especially notable are the artistic performances 
of J. J. Crane, Theodore L. Cuyler (afterwards a famous 
divine), and Eli Whitney in 1839, and of R. G. Remsen 
in 1840. A clerk's title page in April 1866 gives us 
the first intimation we find in the minutes of the exist- 
ence of baseball. This presents a pen-and-ink sketch 
showing ball, bats, cap, shoes, and belt in artistic ar- 
rangement. In the following autumn there is a report 
of two famous games played on Clio's challenge be- 
tween nines of the two Halls. Clio won both games ; the 
first by a score of 41 to IS, the second by a score of 
32 to 13 ! The Whigs were evidently rapidly improving 
in their play. However, there is evidence in the "Jour- 
nal at Nassau Hall," kept by a Clio in 1786, from which 
quotation has already been made, that something 
known as base ball was practiced by the students long 
before this. Under date of Wednesday, March 22, 1786, 
the diarist writes : "A fine day ; play baste ball in the 
campus, but am beaten for I miss both catching and 
striking the Ball." 

So, too, the first allusion in the minutes to the actual 
existence of the Civil War is seen in the depiction of 
three soldiers on the decorative title page of the min- 
utes of clerk Wilberforce Freeman ('64), in August 
1862. Strangely enough, as one can not help feeling, 



174 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

the minutes contain no allusion to the exciting political 
campaign of 1860 or to the secession developments in 
the South that rapidly followed. The first intimation 
of the storm that was brewing is found in the spring of 
1861, when two Southern members of the Hall that had 
been chosen as Junior Orators resigned their appoint- 
ment; one of them, Edward F. Neufville, of Savannah, 
declaring that he was "compelled on account of the 
present agitated state of the country to return to his 
home in the South." 

The subject for the prize debate in the fall of 1862 
read: "Was the President right in suspending the writ 
of habeas corpus?^' Other subjects of debate, reflect- 
ing interest in the stupendous national controversy, 
were, in 1863: "Which is the best friend to the United 
States, England or France?" (Decided in favor of 
France.) "Is a paper currency sufficiently safe to war- 
rant its continuance?" (Negative won.) In 1864: 
"Should England be held responsible for the depreda- 
tions of the Alabama?" (Affirmative won.) "Is the 
emancipation proclamation justifiable?" (Affirmative 
won.) "Is there sufficient reason to believe that after 
this war the union of these States will be perfected?" 
(Affirmative won.) On March 10, 1865, just a month 
before Appomattox : "Should we accept propositions of 
peace from the South?" (Affirmative won.) On May 
12, 1865 : "Would it be wise for the President to issue 



INTERESTS AND INCIDENTS 175 

a general amnesty to all who have been Rebels?" (Af- 
firmative won.) 

The Hall showed its patriotism also in another way. 
The custom still prevailed in those years of adopting 
resolutions of condolence and appreciation when the 
death of any Clio was announced. The minutes record 
such resolutions concerning many men that perished on 
the perilous edge of battle. The Hall, for example, 
lamented the death of Adjutant Josiah Simpson Studdi- 
ford ('58), "who fell while gallantly leading his regi- 
ment (4th New Jersey volunteers) against the traitorous 
foe. His memory should be more honored when he has 
fallen in so glorious a cause." Similar expressions 
abound. "We ever love," the Hall in one instance de- 
clared, "to honor those who have yielded their lives in 
defense of liberty." In September, 1863, a committee 
was appointed to draft resolutions on the death of S. T. 
Black ('57), of Arkansas. The committee reported that 
it had learned that Black had died in the Confederate 
service and asked further instructions. Whereupon it 
was immediately discharged. In the year following the 
close of the war, the Hall ordered a compilation and 
engrossing of a roll of honor to contain the names of 
all the sons of Clio who had served in the Union army 
or navy, with special note of those that had sealed their 
patriotic devotion with their blood. 

Tuesday evening, April 18, 1865, four days after the 



176 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

tragedy at Ford's theatre, a mournful special meeting 
of the Society was held. It was ordered that the Hall 
be draped in black "in token of our sorrow for the death 
of our Chief Magistrate." At the annual meeting in 
June following, joy at the ending of the war and grief 
at the tragic death of Lincoln found expression in ap- 
propriate resolutions. 

Another instance of the display of patriotism by the 
Hall, of much earlier date, is worthy of brief record. 
This was the presentation at considerable cost of a block 
of marble, decorated with symbolic relief sculpturing 
and bearing an appropriate inscription, to be used in 
the Washington Monument at the national capital. 
Full details of this event are given by Professor Giger 
in his History. The matter was proposed in February 
1851. The block was completed in June 1853, and pre- 
sented through Dr. Frederick S. Giger ('4*1), who had 
been zealous in promoting the gift. In his letter of 
presentation. Dr. Giger recalled the fact that at the 
Commencement of 1783, when Congress was meeting in 
Nassau Hall, Washington had given fifty guineas to 
the College ; that this sum had been expended, not in re- 
pairs of the dilapidated building, but in having a full 
length portrait of the General painted by Charles W. 
Peale; that this portrait was now hanging in the Col- 
lege, "in the very frame which contained the picture of 
King George, and which was decapitated by Washing- 
ton's artillery"; and he added: 



INTERESTS AND INCIDENTS 177 

"We, therefore, with no oi'dinary emotion, bring this 
offering to the memory of him whom we have ever re- 
garded as our model, and whose name always enkindles 
our patriotism. . . . No sculptured stone, no glowing 
phrase, can adequately portray the unutterable elo- 
quence of the heart. The block which we present is but 
a shadowy type of the veneration and homage which has 
ever gone forth from our literary temple as a rich cloud 
of incense to the great and good Washington. No 
Congress has ever assembled since the Revolution, in 
which this Institution has not been largely represented. 
Her graduates have occupied and are now adorning the 
highest offices in the State. They have always been 
found bearing testimony to the homage which we here 
pay to his memory by their devotion to and defense 
of the great principles which he bequeathed to our 
country." 

There have been innumerable notable gatherings in 
the Hall, when distinguished graduates have returned to 
renew their fealty and to speak words of encourage- 
ment, pleasant to hear, to the attending members; or 
when "occasional," or special, meetings have been held 
to welcome famous men to honorary membership. May 
9, 1817, "an occasional meeting was called for the pur- 
pose of admitting to Society the Hon. James Monroe, 
President of the United States, and General [Joseph] 
G. Swift, who accompanied the President on a tour 



178 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

through the country." In September, 1824, great 
preparations were made for the initiation of General 
La Fayette and his son George Washington La Fayette. 
Special diplomas were executed and gold medals were 
ordered for presentation. But some way, alas! our 
friends, the Whigs, stole a march on Clio. The annual 
report dolefully recites: "In recounting the principal 
events which have occurred during the past year we 
would notice an affair which has caused great excitement 
among us. We refer to the admission of Major General 
La Fayette. This distinguished patriot was prevailed 
upon to give his consent to be proposed an honorary 
member of Society, but owing either to the exertions of 
our rival or the lukewarmness and treachery of our own 
members, we were deprived the pleasure of evincing to 
the 'National Guest' our respect and veneration by 
initiating him during his visit to this place." Similar 
special preparations were made for the initiation of 
President John Quincy Adams in September, 1825, 
and for President Andrew Jackson and "Governor 
Cass of Michigan" in June, 1833. On November 
16, 1834, Henry Clay, at that time a Senator, was 
initiated and received with enthusiastic welcome. He 
had been elected to honorary membership seventeen 
years before, while he was Speaker of the House of 
Representatives. 

June 27, 1865, the Society celebrated the hundredth 



INTERESTS AND INCIDENTS 179 

anniversary of its founding. A full account of the cele- 
bration is appended to Professor Giger's centennial 
History. It is necessary here, therefore, to give only 
a brief summary. In the morning a procession of Clio- 
sophians, Trustees, members of the Faculties of the Col- 
lege and the Seminary, representatives of other literary 
societies, and guests, was formed in front of Nassau 
Hall and marched to the First Church. Chancellor 
Henry W. Green ('20) presided. President John Mac- 
lean ('16) oifered prayer. A history of the Society was 
read by Professor George Musgrave Giger ('^l)? and 
an oration was delivered by the Reverend Edward Norris 
Kirk ('20), at that time of Boston and one of the noted 
pulpit orators of the day. 

Dr. Kirk's theme was "Self-Culture," its purpose and 
the means and methods of its attainment. His words 
were addressed particularly to the young men in Col- 
lege. He urged them to strive for the development of 
all their powers, physical, mental, moral, and religious. 
"Aspire, young friends," he said, "aim high, soar, — 
the impulse is noble, but it needs qualification and guid- 
ance. Fame is not the goal; men's admiration, power, 
position, are not the end to seek; they are too low for 
man, made in the image of God. There is a better way, 
a better end. Your own Cliosophic motto gives you 
the key, Prodesse quam Conspici. Be rather than seem ; 
seek excellence and usefulness before admiration." "The 



180 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

only thorough self-culture," he said in conclusion, "in- 
volves growing into likeness to Christ. He that will ar- 
rive at the fullness of the stature of perfect manhood, 
must pass beyond the heroes of pagan Rome, the sages 
of pagan Greece ; yea, even the chief apostle of Christian- 
ity, for his ultimate model. His work is that of the 
sculptor, who having found some splendid fruit of Gre- 
cian art places it in his studio; you enter, arid behold, 
he is rapt in admiring contemplation of this model. 
Then, fired with enthusiasm, he turns from that to the 
rude block of marble before him; cutting and filing, 
dashing off as incumbrances every particle of the 
precious stone which hinders the perfection of the 
likeness. This must be brought to resemble that. 
To secure this resemblance is the work of his hand, 
and of his soul, — of his life. Hie labor, hoc opus 
est. — ^Young brethren, to shine as planets in the upper 
firmament, you must get all your light from the 
Central Sun." 

When the exercises in the church were over, a colla- 
tion was served in Mercer Hall, which was decorated 
with the mottoes of the Halls arid with the names of the 
founders and other distinguished sons of Clio. The 
first toast proposed was "Our Sister Association — the 
American Whig Society," to which Colonel William C. 
Alexander ('24) responded. His speech was in praise 
"of the institution with which these two Societies are 



INTERESTS AND INCIDENTS 181 

connected," in thinking of which "we stand on a com- 
mon platform. Her glory is our glory ; her reputation 
is the joint property and possession of the two So- 
cieties." Aye, verily, from of old and always ! "No 
clime is so remote," he said, "that it has not been vis- 
ited ; no air so pestilential, it has not been breathed ; no 
danger so great, it has not been encountered, unap- 
palled, by the sons of this College in the performance of 
the duty which they felt was pressing upon them. En- 
deavoring to make man wiser, purer, better, happier; 
pointing to his duty and his destiny; teaching him his 
duty first to God, then to his neighbor and his country, 
they have been enabled to perform a benevolent part in 
the world. A fierce fight is waging between light and 
darkness, truth and error; and this institution is pre- 
paring champions for the conflict. Education alone 
will not do it ; you may enlighten the intellect, but unless 
you reach the heart the labor is in vain. Our province 
is, not only to inculcate knowledge, but those principles, 
the application of which banishes implements of cruelty, 
arrests the progress of superstition, cools passion, ex- 
tinguishes vice and misery, and saves from national 
degradation and ruin." 

Following a "Centennial Ode of Welcome," from the 
pen of Alfred H. Fahnestock ('68), sung by the com- 
pany to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne," the best of 
whose seven pitiful stanzas was, 



182 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

"Why meet we here with song and cheer, 

A Cliosophic band? 
Because we still in heart and will 

Indissoluble stand; 
And though the years bring joy and tears, 

Joy speaks but Grief is dumb; 
And Hope's fair hand our sky has spanned 

For all the years to come," 

Ex-Chancellor Oliver Spencer Halstead, who had grad- 
uated fifty-iive years (before, when the Society was only 
forty-five years old, spoke to the toast, "The Cliosophic 
Society," confining himself to reminiscences of the Clios 
of his class, especially George M. Dallas, Vice-President 
in the time of Polk. 

The great scientist, Joseph Henry, an honorary mem- 
ber of Whig Hall, spoke next for the Smithsonian Insti- 
tuition, recalling his life as professor at Princeton. "I 
was not so fortunate," he said, "as to be one of Prince- 
ton's sons. I am an adopted son, however. She received 
me kindly, took me into her bosom, nurtured me; and 
I can say that during the sixteen years that I resided 
here, I felt myself constantly growing, constantly de- 
veloping, from the air of this venerated institution, 
which was redolent of great thoughts." 

Dr. Jonathan Edwards, President of Hanover Col- 
lege, responded to the toast, "All the other Literary 
Societies of the Land and all the Literary Institutions 
of the Country." His climax was : "No other one in- 
stitution possesses the hold and power of a college. In 



INTERESTS AND INCIDENTS 183 

the college, no one agency exerts more moulding power 
than the literary societies. The mental attrition, the 
compression, the spur, — all the other influences that put 
on or take off, or develop character and modify temper 
and cement relationships are found in the society halls 
as they are found nowhere else. On behalf of the West, 
I tender homage to this Society, magna mater virorum, 
A hundred years have added to her benignity; may a 
hundred more find her in the dignity and bloom of her 
youth!" (So say we, all of us !) 

There followed brief speeches by Professor Lyman H. 
Atwater, speaking as an alumnus of Yale, and by James 
M. McDonald, pastor of the First Church, and Pro- 
fessor Stephen Alexander, speaking as alumni of Union 
College, all emphasizing the value of the training af- 
forded by college literary societies ; by Dr. Kirk, the ora- 
tor of the morning, by the Hon. Robert McKnight ('39), 
by A. O. Zabriskie ('25), and by Dr. George M. Maclean 
('24). The celebration was brought to a close by Dr. 
Elijah R. Craven ('42), pronouncing a benediction. 

It is worthy of note that at the annual meeting of 
this centennial year a handsome Bible was presented to 
the Society. From that time on it became customary 
to open the meetings of the Hall with reading from the 
Scriptures as well as with prayer. The opening with 
prayer had been introduced fifty years earlier. 

As the sesquicentennial birthday of the Society drew 



184 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

near, preparations began to be made for its proper ob- 
servance. A large committee to have the matter in 
charge was constituted, of which Dean Andrew Fleming 
West ('74) was made Chairman, as follows: — Faculty 
Members: Dean W. F. Magie ('79), Dean H. B. Fine 
('80), General A. A. WoodhuU ('56), Professors T. W. 
Hunt ('65), William Libbey ('77), H. D. Thompson 
C85), G. B. McClellan ('86), E. Y. Bobbins ('89), V. 
L. Collins ('92), H. V. Covington ('92), and W. K. 
Prentice ('92); Graduate Members: S. J. McPherson 
('74), Charles B. Williams ('75), Bayard Henry ('76), 
M. Allen Starr ('76), John A. Campbell ('77), C. C. 
Black ('78), H. G. Duffield ('81), Bobert S. Yard 
('83), J. W. Bayard ('85), Charles W. McAlpine ('88), 
W. C. Bobinson ('88), F. S. Katzenbach, Jr. ('89), 
Alvin C. McCord ('89), F. V. Pitney ('90), Henry W. 
Green ('91), Knox Taylor ('95), F. F. Hopper ('00), 
W. E. Hope ('01), A. E. VondermuhU ('01), A. J. 
Barron ('02), M. Struthers Burt ('04), C. H. Gamble 
('05), N. Ewing, Jr. ('09), Jesse Herrman ('10), 
Theodore Janeway ('10), C. C. Savage, Jr. ('11), C. 
C. Belknap ('12), Wm. M. Chester ('13), Boger W. 
Straus ('13), and Julius O. Adler ('14) ; Undergradu- 
ate Members: B. Bowland ('15), Chairman, W. S. 
Busk ('15), Secretary, D. W. Carruthers ('15), W. H. 
Haines ('15), J. C. Healey ('15), S. M. Bobinson 
('15), J. McI. Smith ('15), B. B. Atterbury ('16), S. 




Oliver Ellsworth, Class of 1766 



[From the miniature by Trumbull, owned by Yale University] 



INTERESTS AND INCIDENTS 185 

L. Praner ('16), C. S. Tippetts ('16), N. M. Chester 
('17), and J. P. Fishburn ('18) ; Honorary Members: 
Henry van Dyke ('73), Mahlon Pitney ('79). 

The following sub-committees were named: Execu- 
tive, with Dean West as chairman ; Finance, Mr. Bayard 
Henry, chairman; Exercises, Professor Thompson, 
chairman ; History, Professor Collins, chairman. It was 
at first suggested that effort be made to have the cele- 
bration rival that of the centennial anniversary, with 
academic procession to Alexander Hall to listen to a 
public oration by a distinguished alumnus, and a ban- 
quet and speeches at Procter Hall. But Monday of 
commencement week is so filled with class day activities 
that such a plan was felt to be impracticable. 

It was decided to provide for the publication of a 
history of the Society, and to combine the celebration 
of the eventful anniversary with the proceedings of the 
regular annual meeting. This fell on Monday, June 14, 
1915, at quarter past ten in the morning. In prepara- 
tion for the occasion the Hall had been tastefully 
draped with the pink of the Society and the orange and 
black of the University. The President of the Annual 
Meeting was James Wilson Bayard ('85), and the order 
of exercises was as follows : 

Reading of the Scriptures and Prayer by 

The Reverend Dr. George C. Yeisley '70 

Reading of the Annual Report by the Junior Historian 

Clarence Muir Tappen '16 



186 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

Presentation of Diplomas to the (jraduating Class 

Address bj 

The Hon. Frank S. Katzenbach, Jr. '89 

"The Cliosophic Society, Past and Present" 

Old Nassau 

The chief commemorative feature of the exercises was 
the address. Unfortunately, it was not committed to 
manuscript; so it can not be embodied in this volume. 
Mr. Katzeribach gave an interesting review of the found- 
ing and the progress of the Society, and dwelt with 
genuine eloquence on the great names that have adorned 
our annals, and on the spirit of sincerity and honest 
effort which has animated the Hall's endeavors. The 
motto has been more than an empty phrase. It has 
expressed the ideal of character, the principle of con- 
duct, which through all its vicissitudes the Cliosophic 
Society has sought to exemplify and to make controlling 
influences in the spiritual and practical lives of her 
members. 

Those who heard the address felt a fresh glow of satis- 
faction that Clio had been their protectress in college 
days, increased enthusiasm for our noble motto, and new 
hope and confidence that the Society which for one hun- 
dred and fifty years has filled so large and worthy a 
place in the life and affections of Princeton students 
will abide while the University abides in undiminished 
vitality and vigor. 



CHAPTER VIII 



The Sons of Clio 



Any undergraduate student in the University, not a 
member of Whig Hall, is eligible for admission to Clio 
Hall. In the early days of the Society, when the num- 
ber of students was small, close scrutiny was made of 
the intellectual and moral qualities of candidates for 
membership, and young men considered undesirable on 
either score were rejected. In the letter from a graduate 
of the class of 1802, which Professor Giger gives, we 
read : "A young man was allowed a month after enter- 
ing College to select [between the two Societies]. . . . 
Unlucky was the youth who could not be admitted. He 
could never hold a respectable standing. His name, 
proposed after a month in the class, lay one week under 
consideration; all eyes were of course upon him; his 
manners, habits, his standing in his class, and general 
conduct were considered; perhaps his classmates were 
examined, and he was admitted or rejected, knowing no 
more of what was passing than an utter stranger. If 
no cause of objection appeared, he was received; but if 
any black spot was found, it was a very easy matter to 
close the door against him. Fairness and liberality pre- 

187 



188 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

vailed." If after a young man's admission serious de- 
fects in character or deficiencies in scholarship were 
discovered or developed, and these were found to be in- 
corrigible, he was "separated" from the Society. 

The Society of course retains its powers of discipline, 
but these have long been exercised without censorious 
severity. It is taken for granted that the members will 
conduct themselves as gentlemen. The Hall offers its 
facilities and opportunities for rhetorical culture and 
parliamentary training. It urges all its members to 
make the best use of them ; but it does not bother itself 
overmuch with the individuals that are lax or negligent. 
But, of course, at graduation, now as always, the hall 
diploma is conferred only on those who have conscien- 
tiously performed a specified minimum of required 
exercises. 

In its hundred and fifty years of life the Hall has had 
on its roster of membership something more than seven 
thousand names ; a somewhat larger number than its 
friend and rival has counted. Of these seven thousand, 
five thousand in round numbers had graduated from the 
College or University ; some seventeen hundred had left 
the institution before graduation, and the rest were 
undergraduates at the time of the sesquicentennial cele- 
bration. While the greater proportion of the members 
has been drawn, as might have been expected, from New 
Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York, there is no part 



THE SONS OF CLIO 189 

of the country that has not been represented. Sons of 
Clio have come from every State in the Union, with the 
possible exception of two or three of the sparsely settled 
mountain States of the Far West. They have come also 
from Hawaii and Porto Rico; from Canada, Nova 
Scotia, Bermuda, Cuba, Santo Domingo, and the West 
Indies ; from Brazil and Chili ; from England, Scotland, 
Ireland, and Wales ; from France, Germany, Switzer- 
land, Italy, and Greece; from Turkey, Asia Minor, 
Syria, Persia, and Egypt; from India, Ceylon, China, 
and Japan. There is no hour of the day when the sun 
is not shining upon some land whence votaries of Clio 
have sprung or where in after years they have labored 
in good causes. 

On the establishment of the Princeton Theological 
Seminary, the Halls decided to grant a modified form 
of membership to a limited number of theological stu- 
dents. These are known as "Adopted Graduate Mem- 
bers." They are entitled to the privileges of the Hall 
building, to the use of the library, etc., but they do not 
participate in the management or the literary exercises of 
the Society. They are treated in fact like regular grad- 
uate members. In later years any post-graduate stu- 
dents have been eligible to this sort of membership. 
From 1812 to 1915 the Hall elected eight hundred and 
fifty (round number) "Adopted Graduates." In this 
list are found the names of many men that in their later 



190 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

careers filled most important posts in Church and State 
and University, and that won for themselves high and 
deserved fame. 

References have already been made to the fact that 
it has also been the custom of the Halls to elect men to 
honorary membership. The Societies have felt that the 
honor was reciprocal, and the letters of acceptance re- 
ceived by Clio, especially in the olden time, indicate that 
the writers were duly appreciative of the distinction 
conferred on them. All these letters, and their number 
is legion, were faithfully transcribed in the minutes, and 
the autograph signature appended by the use of paste. 
They afford, what Horace Greeley used to call, "mighty 
interestin' readin'," reflecting as they do both the epis- 
tolary fashions of various periods and the individual 
qualities of the writers. Nothing, for instance, could 
be more characteristic than the following brief letter of 
March 29, 1859, from the famous Henry Ward Beecher : 
"I received with pleasure your notification of my election 
to an honorary membership of the Cliosophic Society 
of the College of New Jersey. You may be assured that 
I am not a member of the American Whig Society and 
never will be. Indeed, although I now first learn of the 
existence of such a society, and of course know nothing 
of its members or principles, yet I am prepared to be- 
lieve them quite unworthy and much to be contemned! 
I trust that thus I shall earn a place in the confidence 
of all true Cliosophic men." 



THE SONS OF CLIO 191 

Members of the Faculty coming from other institu- 
tions of learning were always made honorary members 
of one Hall or the other. The aim was to keep the 
Faculty about evenly divided between the two Halls; 
and so the Faculty at times seems to have determined 
which Hall should have the privilege of electing a new 
professor. Thus, in his speech at the centennial ban- 
quet, Professor Joseph Henry declared: "I am not a 
member of the Cliosophic Society. I am a Whig. I 
wish I could have been a member of both. When I came 
here, I believe it was decided in solemn council that I 
should become a Whig. I was rather more enamored 
with the name Clio, as Whig sounded somewhat political 
[He came to Princeton during the time when one of the 
two great political parties of the country bore the appel- 
lation Whig] ; but my propensities and feelings were for 
the Whigs of 1776." 

The first honorary member elected by Clio, of whom 
we have record or tradition, was the Rev. Jedediah 
Chapman. He was a graduate of Yale and an honorary 
A.M. of Princeton, of 1765. From 1795 to 1800, he 
was a member of the Board of Trustees. He is set down 
in our catalogue as having been elected in 1769, but that 
is doubtless an error as the Society that year was in a 
state of suspended animation. All together, we have the 
names of sixteen gentlemen elected to honorary member- 
ship before 1800; the most distinguished name among 



192 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

them is that of John Maclean, the promising young 
Scotch scientist who joined the Faculty in 1795. In 
this same period the Whig catalogue shows only one 
name, that of the brilliant and romantic Mrs. Annis 
Stockton, who is reported to have been honored in 1776. 
It was she who endeared herself to our friends by pre- 
serving the Whig records during the troublous days 
when the British troops were playing havoc with Nassau 
Hall. No other lady, as far as the writer knows, has 
ever been so honored by either Hall. 

Up to the end of its hundred and fiftieth year, Clio 
had elected fifteen hundred (round figures) honorary 
members. The list contains the names of many of the 
most famous men of their times. Among them were 
these Presidents of the United States : James Monroe, 
John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van 
Buren, James K. Polk, James A. Garfield, Chester A. 
Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, and 
William McKinley. 

Prominent statesmen and jurists are very numerous. 
Among the latter are Bushrod Washington, Roger B. 
Taney, William B. Strong, John A. Campbell, Stanley 
Matthews, Morrison R. Waite, Roger A. Pryor, Cort- 
landt Parker, and Joseph H. Choate; among the for- 
mer : Henry Clay, Daniel D. Tompkins, William Wirt, 
Lewis Cass, Theodore Frelinghuysen, Edward Everett, 
Thomas Ewing, Wm. L. Marcy, Silas Wright, W. H. 



THE SONS OF CLIO 193 

Seward, Sargent S. Prentiss, John J. Crittenden, Fred- 
erick T. Frelinghuysen, Robert J. Walker, Herschel V. 
Johnson, Howell Cobb, Robert Toombs, Alex. H. 
Stephens, Daniel S. Dickinson, L. Q. C. Lamar, Thad- 
deus Stevens, Wm. L. Yancey, Schuyler Colfax, Willard 
Saulsbury, Thomas A. Hendricks, John A. Dix, Chaun- 
cey M. Depew, Wm. B. Allison, Henry C. Lodge, Levi 
P. Morton, Thomas B. Reed, George F. Edmunds, Wm. 
E. Russell, George F. Hoar, John Hay, Arthur J. Bal- 
four, James Bryce, and Joseph Chamberlain. 

College Presidents and professors make a long list of 
names. Only some of those of greatest distinction and 
achievement can be specified : Eliphalet Nott, Jeremiah 
Day, John Torrey, Charles Anthon, Benj. Silliman, 
Francis Lieber, E. A. Sophocles, C. C. Felton, Simeon 
North, Francis Wayland, Louis Agassiz, Daniel Kirk- 
wood, Arnold Guyot, Scheie De Vere, Wm. A. Packard, 
Wm. D. Whitney, Homer B. Sprague, Charles A. 
Young, Mark Bailey, Cyrus F. Brackett, Francis L. 
Patton, Simon Newcomb, Martin B. Anderson, James 
B. Angell, Timothy W. Dwight, Chas. W. Waldstein, 
W. G. Sumner, Bliss Perry, Lord Kelvin, Henry Calder- 
wood, August Dorner, and Henry Drummond. 

So, too, we count a host of authors among our honor- 
ary members. This includes: Washington Irving, 
William CuUen Bryant, Wm. Gilmore Simms, Jared 
Sparks, Oliver Wendell Holmes, John W. Draper, Don- 



194 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

aid G. Mitchell, John J. Audubon, James Parton, Fitz- 
Greene Halleck, Benj. J. Lossing, Richard Grant White, 
James T. Fields, John G. Saxe, Paul H. Hayne, John 
Bach McMaster, Samuel L. Clemens, Edmund C. Sted- 
man, John Fiske, John G. Whittier, Lawrence Hutton, 
Robert Grant, Wm. D. Howells, George W. Cable, Booth 
Tarkington, Justin McCarthy, Conan Doyle, Andrew 
Lang, Hall Caine, Gilbert Parker, A. V. Dicey, Paul 
Blouet, Rudolfo Lanciani, and Henry K. Sienkiewicz. 

Among the great preachers on our list are: Samuel 
Hanson Cox, George W. Doane, Edwin F. Hatfield, 
Leonard Bacon, Nathaniel S. Prime, George B. Cheever, 
Henry Ward Beecher, John Hall, Richard S. Storrs, 
Howard Crosby, Arthur C. Coxe, Chas. Cuthbert Hall, 
Thomas S. Hastings, John R. Vincent, Chas. H. Park- 
hurst, Alessandro Gavazzi, Chas. H. Spurgeon, Frederic 
W. Farrar, Joseph Parker, and John Watson. 

Great editors are represented by Charles A. Dana, 
Alexander K. McClure, Whitelaw Reid, Murat Hal- 
stead, H. W. Grady, St. Clair McKelway, Albert Shaw, 
H. C. Trumbull, and Lyman Abbott. 

Great capitalists and philanthropists, by Thomas 
Biddle, James Lenox, A. T. Stewart, Alex. Stuart, 
Wm. E. Dodge, John C. Green, John I. Blair, Cyrus 
W. Field, Wm. Libbey, J. Ackerman Coles, George 
Westinghouse, Andrew Carnegie, and J. Pierpont 
Morgan. 



THE SONS OF CLIO 195 

A very few of the other distinguished names on our 
list are: Samuel B. Morse, Charles Lucien Bonaparte, 
M. F. Maury, George H. Thomas, Edwin Booth, Henry 
M. Stanley, Thomas Nast, Joseph Jefferson, R. L. 
Peary, John R. Mott, and Henry Irving. 

The election to honorary membership of such men, 
and they are fairly representative of the great majority 
on our list, undoubtedly reflects the intellectual taste 
and interest of the Hall in various epochs of its career. 
The Society has shown itself to be wide and catholic 
in its sympathies. 

But much as we are pleased in contemplating the dis- 
tinctions of our honorary members, our chief pride and 
glory are in the lives and achievements of the men who 
have been active members of the Hall, who have partici- 
pated in its endeavors and been under the influence of its 
discipline. The more intimately we study the wide 
diversity and significance of their accomplishment, the 
greater will be our pride ; the more assured we shall feel 
in glorying that we belong to the brotherhood of Clio. 
It is quite impossible within the limits of a single chapter 
to give anything like an exhaustive presentation of the 
facts which such a study discloses. The most that can 
be attempted is a cursory review with certain rapid 
generalizations. 

It is not too much to say that a fairly accurate and 
satisfactory political history of the United States, from 



196 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

the close of the Revolutionary War down to the begin- 
ning of the present century, could be written from the 
biographies of sons of Clio. For the earliest period, 
abundant material would be found in the manifold public 
activities and associations of William Paterson (1763), 
Oliver Ellsworth C66), Luther Martin (^66), Jonathan 
Dickinson Sergeant ('62), Pierpont Edwards ('68), and 
Frederick Frelinghuysen ('70) ; not to mention other 
names. The first three, as was shown in our first chap- 
ter, helped to make the Constitution and played impor- 
tant parts in public life later. The last three were in 
the national councils before the Constitution was 
formed; and the last named also in the Senate of the 
United States while Washington was President. 

In this same period, but living to a later time, Aaron 
Burr ('72) came into national prominence, first as a 
Senator from New York and then as Vice-President dur- 
ing Jefferson's first term. How much of the political 
history of years is revealed by his brilliant, deplorable, 
pitiable career! In this period, too, Jonathan Dayton 
('76), of New Jersey, served several terms in Congress, 
being twice elected Speaker, and later was chosen to the 
Senate, and Henry Lee ('73), "Light-Horse Harry," of 
Virginia, was in Congress, both contributing their share 
to the political history of the time. In 1799 that bril- 
liant, erratic, caustic Virginian, John Randolph of 
Roanoke, who was admitted into the Cliosophic Society 



THE SONS OF CLIO 197 

in 1787, began his career in Congress. For more than 
thirty years he was a vigorous and often disturbing 
force in our national politics. Study his life and you 
are brought into intimate relations with the political 
controversies and policies, the influential men and the 
decisive measures, of that period of American history. 

More distinguished for solid attainment was the pub- 
lic career of Richard Rush ('97), of Pennsylvania. He 
was Attorney-General in Madison's Cabinet from 1814 
to 1817, when he was sent by Monroe to England as 
Minister Plenipotentiary. He remained in that capacity 
for eight years, negotiating several important treaties. 
He was Secretary of the Treasury under John Quincy 
Adams and in 1828 was candidate, with Adams, for 
Vice-President. In 1836 he was sent to England by 
Jackson as special agent, and in 1847, by Polk as Min- 
ister to France, where he was the first foreign minister 
to recognize the republic of 1848. 

For more than twenty years from 1821, Samuel L. 
Southard (1804), of New Jersey, was in the thick of 
affairs — as Senator, as Secretary of War in the Cab- 
inets of Monroe and John Quincy Adams, and, after 
being Governor of New Jersey, as Senator again ; dying 
in 1842, when he was President of the Senate. In 1829 
Theodore Frelinghuysen, also of New Jersey and a 
classmate of Southard's, entered the Senate where he 
served the Whig cause ably for one term. Not long 



198 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

after his retirement he became Chancellor of the Uni- 
versity of New York. In 1844 the Whigs nominated 
him for Vice-President on the ticket with Henry Clay, 
and six years later he assumed the Presidency of Rutgers 
College, which he honored with years of service. 

During the same time George Mifflin Dallas (1810), 
of Pennsylvania, was rising to conspicuous eminence. 
He became a Senator in 1831 ; was sent as minister to 
Russia in 1837; was elected Vice-President with Polk 
in 1844 (in 1846 casting the deciding vote for the 
famous Walker tariff law of that year) ; was Minister 
to England from 1856 to 1861. His political activities 
thus cover the storm and stress period immediately pre- 
ceding the great civil cataclysm. 

Also in this period a figure of great distinction was 
John McPherson Berrien (1796). He was bom near 
Princeton but went soon after his graduation to 
Georgia. He entered the Senate in 1824, was made 
Attorney-General in 1829, and was returned to the 
Senate in 1840 where he remained for twelve years, 
being one of the leaders in that body. He was one of 
the most eloquent speakers of the time and a man of 
great political influence. In this period, too, George 
W. Crawford ('20), of Georgia, who had been Governor 
of his State, was Secretary of War in the Cabinet of 
President Taylor; and at its very close, William Pen- 
nington ('13), who had several times been elected Gov- 



THE SONS OF CLIO 199 

ernor of New Jersey, was chosen Speaker of the national 
House of Representatives after a prolonged and embit- 
tered contest. 

Overlapping this period was the career of William L. 
Dayton ('25), of New Jersey. He was a Senator from 
1842 to 1851 ; was the candidate of the new Repu'blican 
party for Vice-President with John C. Fremont in 1856, 
and was sent by Lincoln in 1861 as Minister to France, 
where he died in 1864. 

At various times during the period of the Civil War 
and Reconstruction, Alexander Hamilton Bailey ('37), 
of New York, Charles J. Biddle ('37), of Pennsylvania, 
James W. Wall ('38), of New Jersey, Robert McKnight 
('39), of Pennsylvania, Thomas L. Jones ('40), of 
South Carolina, Francis P. Blair ('41), of Missouri, 
and Charles Haight ('57), of New Jersey, served in 
the Senate or the House of Representatives. In this 
period, too, George M. Robeson ('47), of New Jersey, 
was Secretary of the Navy throughout President 
Grant's administration. Moreover, during the Civil 
War, many sons of Clio fought in the armies of the 
North and of the South, most of them as officers, sev- 
eral of whom rose to be brigade or division commanders. 
And many Clios held important civil offices under the 
Confederate regime. 

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century Clio 
was represented in the National Councils by James B. 



200 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

Everhart ('42), of Pennsylvania, Alfred H. Colquitt 
('44), of Georgia, James Monroe Jackson ('45), of 
Virginia, George M. Robeson ('47), of New Jersey, 
John A. Swope ('47), of Pennsylvania, Christopher A. 
Bergen ('63), of New Jersey, R. W. Parker ('67), of 
New Jersey, and Mahlon Pitney ('79), of New Jersey, 
who is now on the Supreme Bench. 

Besides these names that have been singled out for 
special mention, a host of other Cliosophians have been 
active and influential in the public affairs of the coun- 
try. Many have served in Congress in both houses ; 
have been ministers to foreign lands; have been judges 
of the Federal Courts and district attorneys ; have filled 
responsible places in the army and navy and the civil 
service; have been Governors and legislators and judges 
of their States; have been mayors of important cities, 
and leaders in all political, municipal, and social move- 
ments in their communities. 

Verily, therefore, from adequate lives of these men, 
recounting their official actions and public utterances 
and revealing their multifarious relations and corre- 
spondence with influential contemporaries, it would be 
possible, we say, for the trained historian to write a 
reasonably complete history of the political progress and 
development of the United States. 

More than this, the historian of the progress and 
development of the country, during the same long 



THE SONS OF CLIO 201 

period, in law and medicine, in religion and education, 
would find copious information adapted to his purpose 
in the lives and achievements of Cliosophians who rose 
to leadership in all these causes. At the same time a 
very considerable number of Cliosophians have been 
making notable contributions to the scholarship and 
literature of America. All this will abundantly appear 
from a citation of some of the more conspicuous names 
under each of these classifications. 

Most of the men mentioned above as statesmen werq 
among the great lawyers of their time. On the Supreme 
Bench of the United States there have been five Clio- 
sophians: Oliver Ellsworth (1766), Chief Justice, and 
William Paterson (1763), Henry Brockholst Livingston 
(1774), James Moore Wayne (1808), and Mahlon 
Pitney (1879), Associate Justices. The list of Clio- 
sophians who have been judges of other Federal Courts 
and of State courts is far too long to give. It is adorned 
with many very distinguished names. But a few of the 
great advocates of Clio — even at the risk of making 
invidious distinction among the large number — must be 
given: Tapping Reeve (1763), of Connecticut, who 
established the first law school in America, Morgan 
Lewis ('73), of New York, Samuel Bayard ('84), of 
New Jersey, Joseph Clay ('84), of Georgia, William 
Gaston ('96), of North Carolina, Benjamin C. Howard 
(1809), of Maryland, Oliver S. Halstead ('10), of New 



THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

Jersey, Henry W. Green ('20), of New Jersey, Abraham 
O. Zabriskie ('25), of New Jersey, William C. Prime 
('43), of New York, William J. Magie ('52), of New 
Jersey, Alexander T. McGill ('64), of New Jersey, 
Adrian H. Joline ('70), of New York, William B. 
Hornblower ('71), of New York, John P. Kennedy 
Bryan ('73), of South Carolina, James Pennewill ('75), 
of Delaware, Bayard Henry ('76), of Pennsylvania, 
Walter Lloyd Smith ('77), of New York, and Frank S. 
Katzenbach, Jr. ('89), of New Jersey. 

Of the very large number of the sons of Clio who 
have served in the Christian ministry with distinguished 
success, only some of the more notable can be named. 
At the head of our list may be placed Jonathan Ed- 
wards and Theodore Dirck Romeyn, both of the class 
of 1765, who, besides their repute as preachers, had 
much to do with the founding of Union College. Then, 
also of the earlier day, may be mentioned Nathan 
Perkins (1770) of Connecticut, James Hall ('74), of 
North Carolina, Gilbert T. Snowden ('83), of New 
Jersey, George S. Woodhull ('90), of New Jersey, and 
Henry KoUock ('94), of New Jersey. In the nineteenth 
century these may be named: William Meade ('08), of 
Virginia, Bishop of Virginia, Charles P. Mcllvaine 
('16), of New Jersey, President of Kenyon College and 
Bishop of Ohio, Edward N. Kirk ('20), of New York, 
Samuel K. Talmage ('20), of New Jersey, President of 



THE SONS OF CLIO 

Oglesthorpe College, Luther H. VanDoren ('31), of 
New York, President of Columbian College (Mo.), 
Charles S. Dod ('33), of New York, President of West 
Tennessee College, Melancthon W. Jacobus ('34), of 
New Jersey, professor in the Allegheny Theological 
Seminary, Theodore Ledyard Cuyler ('41), of New 
York, Elijah R. Craven ('42), Peter A. Studdiford 
('49), of New Jersey, WiHiam C. Roberts ('55), Presi- 
dent of Lake Forest University, Joseph T. Duryea 
C56), of New York, Alfred H. Kellogg ('59), of 
Pennsylvania, James M. Ludlow ('61), of New Jersey, 
James Forsyth Riggs ('72), of Turkey, Henry van 
Dyke ('73), Howard Duffield ('73), of New Jersey, 
Simon J. McPherson ('74), of New York, John P. 
Campbell ('75), of New York, John P. Coyle ('75), of 
Pennsylvania, George B. Stewart ('76), of Ohio, Presi- 
dent of the Auburn Theological Seminary, Melancthon 
W. Jacobus ('77), of Pennsylvania, President of the 
Hartford Theological Seminary, Wilton Merle Smith 
('77), of New York, Luther D. Wishard ('77), of 
Indiana, organizer of the College Young Men's Chris- 
tian Association and founder of the Young People's 
Missionary movement, Chalmers Martin ('79), of New 
Jersey, Caesar Augustus R. Janvier ('80), of India, 
and Robert E. Speer ('89), of Pennsylvania, Secretary 
of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian 
Church. 



204 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

Of the hundreds of Cliosophians that have devoted 
their lives to the practice and the teaching of medicine 
and sanitary science, a few names only of some of those 
of greatest repute and accomplishment can be cited. 
These include: Isaac Alexander (1772), of South Caro- 
lina, William D. McKissack (1802), of New Jersey, 
Samuel Colhoun ('04), of Pennsylvania, George Hol- 
combe ('95), of New Jersey, Jos. S. Dodd ('13), of 
New Jersey, George M. Maclean ('24), of New Jersey, 
Samuel H. Pennington ('25), of New Jersey, Richard 
D. Arnold ('26), of Georgia, Josiah Simpson ('33), of 
New Jersey, Edward Hartshorne ('37), of Pennsyl- 
vania, John J. Crane ('40), of Connecticut, Frederick 
P. Giger ('41), of Maryland, Robert K. Stone ('42), 
of the District of Columbia, Edward Shippen ('45), of 
New Jersey, Frank Sorrell ('46), of Georgia, John R. 
Everhart ('50), of Pennsylvania, Joseph Jones ('53), 
of Georgia, General Alfred A. WoodhuU (^56), of New 
Jersey, David Magie ('59), of New York, Woolsey 
Johnson ('60), of New York, William H. King ('62), 
of Texas, John D. McGill ('67), of New Jersey, Joseph 
C. Guernsey ('70), of Pennsylvania, Mason F. Williams 
('71), of New Jersey, James H. Lloyd ('73), of Penn- 
sylvania, Richard W. Johnson ('76), of Minnesota, 
Moses Allen Starr ('76), of New York, Theodore Pot- 
ter ('82), of Indiana, William D. Bell ('85), of Kansas, 
Porter R. McMaster ('88), of New York, F. R. Bailey 



THE SONS OF CLIO W5 

('92), of New Jersey, and Bertram V. D. Post ('93), 
of Syria. All of these men, and others many, attained 
marked distinction in their profession; contributing to 
its advancement, writing for its journals, teaching in 
its colleges, and rendering many and various services 
to nation. State, and municipality. 

A notable array of Cliosophians have been busy and 
influential in educational endeavor. Many of the men 
already named as great in law, in the ministry, and in 
medicine, gave much of their time and strength to teach- 
ing. But a goodly number of Clio's graduates have 
devoted their lives to the cause of higher education, of 
whom only a few of the more distinguished can be speci- 
fied: Philip Lindsley (1804), long professor and vice- 
president of Princeton and President of the University 
of Nashville; John Maclean ('16), who served Prince- 
ton all his life, one of the great figures in the history 
of the institution; William P. Finley ('20), President 
of the College of South Carolina; Albert B. Dod ('22), 
one of Princeton's best beloved professors; John S. 
Hart ('30), John S. Schanck ('40), John T. Duffield 
('41), and George Musgrave Giger ('41), leading pro- 
fessors at Princeton; James C. Welling ('44), professor 
at Princeton and President later of St. John's College, 
Maryland, and of the Columbian University at Wash- 
ington; James Morgan Hart ('60), long professor at 
Cincinnati and Cornell; Thomas C. Hall ('79), pro- 



we THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

fessor at the Union Theological Seminary; Max Far- 
rand ('92), professor at Yale; and Theodore W. Hunt 
(^65), Henry van Dyke ('73), Samuel Ross Winans 
('74), Andrew F. West ('74), William Libbey ('77), 
William F. Magie ('79) ; Henry B. Fine ('80), James 
Mark Baldwin ('84), H. D. Thompson ('85), Roger 
B. C. Johnson ('87), W. A. Wyckoff ('88), H. C. War- 
ren ('89), Edmund Y. Bobbins ('89), Fred Neher 
('89), J. P. Hoskins ('91), W. U. Vreeland ('92), H. 
F. Covington ('92), W. K. Prentice ('92), George A. 
Hulett ('92), V. L. CoUins ('92), J. B. Carter ('93), 
Ulric Dahlgren ('94), L. H. Miller ('97), and David 
Magie Jr. ('97), all professors of Princeton. 

All together, more than one hundred and fifty gradu- 
ates of Clio have at one time or another and for longer 
or shorter periods been members of the Faculty of 
Princeton. Of course, in addition to this number, there 
have been many honorary members of Clio in the Fac- 
ulty, some of whom, like John Maclean, senior, W. A. 
Packard, Cyrus F. Brackett, and Francis L. Patton, 
were most loyal in their support of the Hall. More- 
over, something like fifty graduates of Clio have served 
on the Board of Trustees of the College or University. 
Here, too, it may appropriately be recalled that the 
most munificent single benefactor of Princeton was a 
Cliosophian, Isaac Chauncey Wyman, of Massachusetts, 
who graduated in 1848. 



THE SONS OF CLIO 207 

Many of the men just named, jurists, divines, physi- 
cians, professors, were busy likewise with their pens, 
contributing in special articles or public addresses, and 
in innumerable books, to the lore and the literature of 
their particular departments of intellectual endeavor. 
It would be tiresome to specify even the titles of their 
countless publications. Nor is it possible to name all 
the sons of Clio who have enriched the general litera- 
ture of our country. But some few names must be 
given: Parke Godwin ('34), George H. Boker ('42), 
William C. Prime ('43), Charles G. Leland ('45), 
Adrian H. Joline ('70), Henry van Dyke ('73), Bolton 
Hall ('75), W. J. Henderson ('76), Edwin M. Royle 
('83), Vance Thompson ('83), James M. Baldwin 
('84), W. A. Wyckoif ('88), Max Farrand ('92), and 
Latta Griswold ('01). 

Of course, it would be preposterous to claim that the 
greatness or distinction of these men, and of others not 
named, was due to the training and experience they re- 
ceived in Clio Hall. The most that can be said is that 
this training and experience contributed in a real and 
practical way to the development of their powers, to 
their facility in giving expression to their thoughts, to 
their knowledge of the workings of public assemblies, to 
their readiness in dealing with their fellows. It did for 
them something that the classroom exercises could not 
do; helped them in many ways to find themselves, to 



WS THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

test their abilities, to learn to use their knowledge, to 
increase their capacity for discussion, and to develop 
their skill in meeting new and unexpected points of op- 
position or controversy. Letters from graduates, after 
they had gained success and distinction in their pro- 
fessions or in public life, which are scattered through 
the minutes, abound in expressions of obligation to the 
Hall for the benefits that it had conferred in intellectual 
stimulus and moral influence, in rhetorical training and 
parliamentary experience, and in creating and fostering 
friendships. Many men, indeed, have felt that what 
they had gained from their efforts in Hall was of larger 
value to them in after life than their attainment in any 
single course of study in College. 

The great sons of Clio have not owed their greatness 
to Clio any more than they have owed it to their alma 
mater. But Clio as well as Alma Mater had her part — 
and a worthy part — in their development. They were 
stronger men, or sooner became aware of their strength, 
because of their training under the discipline of Clio 
and because of the experience they had gained in the 
clash of mind with mind in the varied exercises of the 
Hall. And Clio has a right to be proud of them; to 
have the same sort of pride in them that Alma Mater 
cherishes. They are part of our history, our heritage, 
our possession. They compass us about, a great cloud 
of witnesses. Such and such were the Cliosophians of 



THE SONS OF CLIO W9 

other days, we may proudly boast. They were our 
elder brothers. They have left us a splendid tradi- 
tion. Their example and achievements should be a spur 
to those that follow after along the way where aforetime 
their feet found pleasant passage. 

And all that Clio has been and has done in the long 
years that have elapsed, since the handful of earnest 
young men first gathered for debate and literary effort 
in that little upper room of Old Nassau, should rein- 
force the determination to maintain the Cliosophic 
tradition unimpaired and to pass it along to future 
generations of students in full vigor and effectiveness. 
Methods may change as they have changed in the past ; 
antiquated forms may yield place to new. But the old 
spirit, the old ideals should endure. 

Always there will be need of such a forum as the Hall 
affords ; for rhetorical and elocutionary practice, for 
free discussion of the questions, old and new, that in- 
terest young men, and, not the Jeast, for the oppor- 
tunities it offers for gaining practical familiarity with 
parliamentary rules and methods. 

The Halls, in all probability, can never be restored 
to the commanding place in undergraduate life and 
affection that they so long occupied. Princeton is no 
longer a college but a great university. Simplicity has 
made way for complexity and widening diversity of 
interests and aims. Innumerable extra-curriculum 



210 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

activities and associations have gradually come into 
being and make their demands upon the time and the 
attention of the students. Undoubtedly, too, the life 
of the clubs, with the intimate relations it fosters among 
particular groups of students, tends to weaken the 
appeal of the Halls. But the Halls, the most ancient 
literary societies in America, offer what no other asso- 
ciation of students in the University can offer or at- 
tempts to offer. And their place should be secure. The 
greatness of their extended history, the solidity and 
permanent worth of their achievement, and the im- 
portance and practical value of the culture they ex- 
emplify and impart, should be a guaranty of their 
perpetuity and continuing prosperity. 



AFTERWORD 

The task laid upon me by the committee is completed, 
as well as it has seemed possible for me to complete it. 
I am aware that my accomplishment may fall short in 
many particulars. The progress and activities of any 
human institution during a century and a half present 
such a multitude of facts, such a diversity of policies, 
such a multiplicity of controversies, so many and so 
various points of contact with other interests, that it 
is difficult to keep within reasonable limits in tracing 
their causes and courses. I have not attempted any- 
thing exhaustive — or, I hope, exhausting. What I have 
sought to do is to give an accurate (as I trust) sum- 
mary of the principal facts of the origin and develop- 
ment of the Cliosophic Society, and to present an 
interpretation of the spirit which has permeated its 
endeavors in different periods of its long life. If I have 
not succeeded in this, I have not succeeded at all. 

And this has not been an easy task to perform. The 
Society has not been careful in the preservation of rec- 
ords. Innumerable documents, in manuscript or in 
print, reports of committees on the early history of 
the Society, letters from early members, transcripts 
of laws and regulations, of treaties and conventions, 

211 



212 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

have disappeared or been cast as rubbish to the void. 
One might suppose, at first thought, that all such rec- 
orfs would have been carefully retained ; and with them 
a copy of every catalogue of the hall library, of every 
catalogue of members, of every document or pamphlet 
printed by the Society, either alone or in conjunction 
with the American Whig Society ; and that there should 
have been preserved likewise a sample of every form of 
the diploma, of every badge and key and medal. But 
this has not been done; perhaps, as I have intimated, 
could not after all have been expected, because the 
membership changes so rapidly and officers exercise 
authority for such brief periods. 

It has been a wearisome undertaking to read volume 
after volume of the minutes of the Society, and yet one 
constantly lightened by passages which gave insight 
into thoughts and conditions that long ago dropped 
out of the minds of youth or ceased entirely to exist. 
Often the hand paused before turning the next leaf, 
while the imagination was busy in trying to visualize 
some ancient meeting of the Hall in the little chamber 
of Old Nassau or the upper north room of Stanhope 
Hall. A wood fire was crackling on the hearth or roar- 
ing in the stove ; candles in sconces or branched candle- 
sticks, or "patent lamps" of reeking sperm oil, were 
shedding dim light ; the close air of the room was heavy 
and somnolent; the chairs and settees were filled with 



AFTERWORD ^13 

young figures in gowns ; and a youth, afterward to be 
famous in church or State, whose bones have long been 
dust, rejoicing in the fictitious name of Themistocles 
or Sempronius, was rising to a point of order, or read- 
ing from the Spectator, or declaiming an oration, or 
debating the relative merits of Alexander and Caesar 
or the tremendously important question whether stu- 
dents should cultivate "female" society. Then the curt 
and jejune recor'ds were aglow with interest and illumi- 
nation, and the intense, throbbing life of far-off student 
days, with its forgotten rivalries, its "hoaxing" esca- 
pades, its eager hopes and ambitions — all, all sunk now 
in "Lethe's dreamless ooze" — seemed once more to be 
astir in the world. 

And when I came down to later years — ah, they too 
are now remote! — to my own time in College, I found 
myself turning the leaves with ever increasing reluctance 
and deliberation, as requickened memory lingered over 
the trials and the triumphs of far away hall nights in 
which the youth that was I had share. Names that 
memory had long let slip again came into consciousness ; 
figures that had grown vague and shadowy resumed 
their form and force. I seemed to feel once more the 
warm touch of vanished hands — pulseless now, dust 
now ; to hear once more the sound of voices that I loved 
— still now, long, long still. (I think of many as I 
write; but most tenderly of all of that rare soul and 



214 THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY 

true, long faithful and efficient in his service to Alma 
Mater and to Clio, my dearest college friend and stead- 
fast friend of long years that followed, Samuel Ross 
Winans ('74), of blessed memory.) 

Yes, there was weariness in laboring through the 
heavy volumes of the minutes, but relieved at sudden 
intervals with melancholy pleasure which was ample 
compensation. If out of the records what I have here 
gathered together and woven into orderly texture shall 
interest my fellow Cliosophians, I shall feel that my 
time was not ill spent. My conviction of the value and 
importance of the Cliosophic Society, as an instru- 
mentality of training and culture for young men in 
their university years, has been deepened and strength- 
ened by my study of the long record of its activities 
and achievement. And what I say of Clio in this re- 
spect, I would say likewise of the American Whig 
Society. The work of both has been substantially the 
same. They have been the two wings of the army of 
Old Nassau, both fighting alike under the same banner, 
both rejoicing to place above their own colors and motto 
the orange and black and the Oranje boven of Alma 
Mater, A classmate of mine, a Whig, has told me that 
his father who was of Yale decided to send his sons to 
Princeton m preference to his own college, because here 
at Princeton the two ancient literary societies were 
still active forces in the life of the College. He be- 



AFTERWORD 215 

lieved the training they gave supplemented the work 
of the classroom in a most helpful and desirable way. 
And that judgment was sound; justified by long ob- 
servation and experience; testified to by innumerable 
men that had enjoyed their privileges and rejoiced in 
the benefit of their discipline. 

I for one cannot doubt that they are still needed, 
still have their distinctive place and work to fill and to 
do. Let them live on in perpetual youth and vigor, 
faithful to the spirit of their long and honorable his- 
tory ! And Clio — may she be true always to her tradi- 
tion of honest effort; true always to her noble motto, 
Prodesse quam Conspici! 



